Intelligent Cities Initiative

Organization Description

Through various projects, forums, and digital tools, the Intelligent Cities Initiative explores the connection between urban design and information technology. Aiming to create livable spaces, the Initiative brings this conversation to every scale, from home to country. Using info-graphics to inform, Intelligent Cities Initiative tackles issues from energy over-consumption and water waste, to loss of community and public space.

The Initiative has spearheaded several projects that question the conventions of urban planning through digital tools.

• In January 2011, the Intelligent Cities Initiative sponsored a talk by Witold Rybczynski, author of Makeshift Metropolis, a book exploring the past and future of our cities.  
• Frequently updated polls on their website, accompanying articles and info-graphics about various urban planning issues, allow the public to engage with their dialogues, asking important questions of themselves as well as their communities.
• An art project, the 24-Hour City Project, brings together interdisciplinary teams of artists, architects, engineers, and technology gurus to explore the intertwined concepts of buildings, data, art, and technology, and where people fit into this mix. This project stemmed from the first Intelligent Cities Forum, a one-day discussion held in July 2011 to discuss these topics and how information technology can inform the evolving built environment.

In addition, the Intelligent Cities initiative has one publication, the Intelligent Cities book, which explores the topics that inform the initiative including urban livability, the built environment, and the past and future role of information technology.

The Intelligent Cities Initiative is supported by TIME, IBM, and the Rockefeller Foundation.