Urban Launchpad Accelerate

8/3/2019 Urban Launchpad Accelerate

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Introducingliving dhaka,a social technology

experiment tomeasure activityin the city

tiger tags


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LivingDhaka

atiger tag is just a piece of paper with a qr codeembedded with a unique but anonymous ide.g.bengaltiger445


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when an individual carries it, he or she becomes a tiger who

can then be tracked by smartphone carrying volunteers.


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which can then be sent into the cloud and aggregrated toproduce measurements like the following which we tested at mit


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where the tigers roamed

LivingShowcaseat MIT | Nov 17, 2011

when the tigers came andwent, how long they stayed

what the tigers were interested in the relationship btwn whatthey liked and where it waslocated


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6 smartphones, 8 volunteers, 140 tigerstotal cost - $200(t-shirts, printing zebra tags, phones borrowed)development time 4 (long) days, 1-2 people

LivingShowcaseat MIT | Nov 17, 2011

50 smartphones, 100 volunteers, x tigers?total cost - $10-20,000wed like to measure things not normallymeasured (e.g. pedestrian flows, bus ridership,cycle rickshaw flows) and understand how boththe measurements themselves and the socialprocess of measurement is received by the city

development time 2 months

LivingDhaka | week of January12, 2012


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Old Dhaka Pedestrian Density & Flows

10 AM 1 PM 6 PMexperimental design50 scanners at 25 fixed nodes3 separate scanning timescolor of dots = high no. of scans/minute

(LARGER SCALE)


main pedestriancorridors


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(MEDIUM SCALE)6 PM

Firmgate Bus Ridership and Speeds

experimental design50 scanners@ 6 fixed nodessize of colors representsnumber of people alightingfrom those stops fromfarmgatespeed calculated byaverage of consecutivescans


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(MEDIUM SCALE)8 PM

Dhanmondi LakeHappiness and Density Map

experimental design50 roaming scanners1 scanning time at peaktimeblue color = places ofhighest number of happypeople


favorite spots


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LivingDhaka Design YourDhakabaseline measurementsof car-free travel in

the city

pedestrian flows, busand cycle rickshawridership, sidewalk

happiness, meeting ofrich and the poor

design challenge toimprove these metrics in

the city

most promising ideas willget seed funding and techassistance to prototype

Grand prize for the

experiment whichimproves the metrics themost

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Albert Ching is an aspiring urban innovator, a lifelong Hawaiian and formerGoogler based in Mountain View, Hyderabad and Singapore. Albert is enduringthe frigid cold of Boston to help cities innovate, specifically by using theproliferation of information technologies to solve transport problems in Southand Southeast Asia. He is a researcher for the Singapore-MIT Alliances Futureof Urban Mobility project. www.mrching.blogspot.com

Muntasir Mamun Imran is a nature lover, adventure-trekker, and anexperienced social entrepreneur from Bangladesh. He is the co-founder ofKewkradong Bangladesh, country coordinator for the Ocean ConservancysInternational Coastal Cleanup, and Organizer of the Banff Mountain FilmFestival World Tour. He has organized cycling rides throughout Bangladeshincluding the Sir Edmund Hillary Ride, the Ride for Green, and theLiveStrong Ride. www.muntasirmamun.com/

Collaborators

Stephen Kennedy is a designer and artist formerly based in Atlanta with abackground in Industrial Design from Georgia Tech. At first a reluctanttransplant to Boston, Stephen has enjoyed trying to escape frigid NewEngland by working as a hybrid planner-designer on signage initiatives in NewOrleans, greenway planning in the Bronx, urban realm technology inThessaloniki, and participatory planning in Indonesia. His focus is on bothphysical planning and spatial information design.www.stephenjameskennedy.com


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P. Chris Zegras is the Ford Assistant Professor of Urban Planning andTransportation at MIT. His research interests include the influence of the builtenvironment on individual travel behavior, transportation infrastructure andsystem financing, indicators of sustainable transportation, and mitigatingtransportation greenhouse gas emissions. On these and other related topics,he has consulted widely, including for the World Bank, the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank, the Canadian, German, US, and Peruvian Governments,the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the UnitedNations Center for Regional Development.

Zia Wadud is an Associate Professor in Civil Engineering at the BangladeshUniversity of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Zia completed his PhDfrom Imperial College London in Civil Engineering Policy in 2008 as aCommonwealth Scholar and held research positions at the University ofCambridge and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zias currentresearch interests are in modeling and valuation of policy interventions inthe transportation and environment sector (including climate changepolicy), modeling energy demand and assessing risk and vulnerability in thecontext of broader Civil Engineering topics.

Advisors


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inspired by the bengal tiger and stripe spotter


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appendix


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mobile phonessmartphones

cars

Dhakatoday

auto lock-in line (10-20%)

window of opportunity

48%

1%


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We have big ambitions . . .

zebra tags

Can the mayor of Dhaka run his city like an MITscientist managing a lab of experiments?

Data Decisions

People Data Visualizations rebranding car alternatives + the city Decisions

Experiments -> measurement

(through people and phones)

Iteration Remeasurement newexperiments repeat rinse ->repeat faster

Feelings Decisionswe arehere

where wed likecities to be


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2 MEASUREMENT

3 IMPACT4 SUSTAINABLE

1 SOCIALTECHNOLOGY

Socialwill people in dhakawant to be

measured? in whatformat? howshould volunteersbe organized andmotivated?

technologywill the technologywork as planned in dhaka? how fastcan the system be

rapidly iterated onand deployed?

measure pre- and post-experimentshow to tell if there is adifference?

measure thingsotherwise difficult tomeasurehow often the rich and poor meet

make visible the invisiblepedestrians, cyclerickshaws, the poor, theaged

data -> decisionspeople data visualizations rebranding caralternatives + the city decisions

experiments ->measurement(through people and

phones) Iteration Remeasurement newexperiments repeat rinse -> repeat

faster

start

finish

zebra tags as a storeof commercial valueintegration withmobile paymentsincentives to motivateusers to scanvalue to localbusinesses andtransport providers

but theres a lot we dont know


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1PRINT QRBADGES

3SCANCITIZENS IN

TARGET AREA

4REGISTERCITIZENS ATNOTABLE

POINTS

2DISTRIBUTETO CITIZENSOUTSIDE

TARGET AREA

Measurement Process



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3FIXED vs.FLEXIBLE

SCANNERS

4SIZE OFMEASUREMENT

AREA

Measurement Variables

1NO. OFSCANNERS

2SCANNINGTIME

target is 5010 teams of 5

target is


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The Urban Launchpad is a MIT-started social mission-driven company /research lab aspiring to accelerate experimentation and innovation in cities

through rapid prototyping and performance measurement on an urban scale

Urban Launchpad Accelerate

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