Much "smart city" work is muddled in politics and regulation and often loses much of what makes the concept coherent. In the end, it usually stays an abstract concept or ends up as the butt of a joke about dumpsters and street lights talking to each other. Sometimes it ends up actually being both useful and truly a novel IoT endeavor, like what Chicago's doing with their Array of Things project. An alternative approach to the notion of a smart city is by centering its conception on its citizens, thus referred to as “smart citizens.” This perspective may allow for a more bottom-up construction of a smart city. The idea is more of a defined array of "my things" that others can partially read or even control versus completely autonomous, m2m, IoT tech. AoT is a more human-centered perspective to IoT, geared toward civic ends.
Who will benefit (directly and indirectly) from this project?
Initially, civic hackers and makers like us. But the first goal is to expand this concept to include actionable goals for something more mainstream like Maker Faires and Instructables.
What problem are we trying to solve?
Much "smart city" work is muddled in politics and regulation and often loses much of what makes the concept coherent. In the end, it usually stays an abstract concept or ends up as the butt of a joke about dumpsters and street lights talking to each other. Sometimes it ends up actually being both useful and truly a novel IoT endeavor, like what Chicago's doing with their Array of Things project. An alternative approach to the notion of a smart city is by centering its conception on its citizens, thus referred to as “smart citizens.” This perspective may allow for a more bottom-up construction of a smart city. The idea is more of a defined array of "my things" that others can partially read or even control versus completely autonomous, m2m, IoT tech. AoT is a more human-centered perspective to IoT, geared toward civic ends.
Who will benefit (directly and indirectly) from this project?
Initially, civic hackers and makers like us. But the first goal is to expand this concept to include actionable goals for something more mainstream like Maker Faires and Instructables.
Links to any research/data available/articles
http://andyhub.com/portfolio/array-of-things/ http://andyhub.com/portfolio/protocity/
What are the next steps (validation, research, coding, design)?
I'll be replicating the ProtoCity work (second link above) while figuring out how to transfer my momentum in Atlanta to Austin.
What help is needed at this time?
Just general discussion and challenging the concept of this to make sure it's not utter rubbish :)