What's Next for Urban Tech?

While New York was in the throes of the second wave of the pandemic last fall, the Urban Tech Hub launched an inaugural series of workshops on the future of urban tech titled “What’s Next for Urban Tech?” Curated by Anthony Townsend, urbanist in residence at the Hub, the online series looked at the role of digital ethics, procurement, density, and predictions in urban technology.

Embracing Austerity: How Will Cities Innovate?

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Sascha Haselmayer, founder and CEO of Citymart and Public Interest Technology Fellow at the New America Foundation joins Anthony Townsend, Urbanist In Residence at Cornell Tech to discuss the coming fiscal crisis, how cities can continue to advance an innovation agenda, and what it means for urban tech.

The Platform Insurgency: Does Urban Tech Have an Ethics Problem?

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Much of urban tech exploits today’s most ethically-charged technologies and business practices—such as indiscriminate location tracking, facial recognition, and gig work to fundamentally reprogram how urban systems function. As these failures become clearer, and broader awareness of systemic injustice in society grows, how can the emerging field of urban tech clarify choices between right and wrong? Cornell Tech’s Helen Nissenbaum and Anthony Townsend co-host a panel discussion featuring Molly Turner from UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, UNStudio’s Ren Yee, and Gary Johnson, Director of Strategy and Operations for the NYC Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer

Did We Get It Right? The Making of A Ten-Year Urban Tech Forecast

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How do futurists and their clients make sense of the intersection of emerging technologies and socioeconomic trends? What’s the difference between a prediction and a forecast? In this roundtable Anthony Townsend and Benjamin De La Peña take us on a guided tour of A Planet of Civic Laboratories: The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion, a ten-year forecast commissioned in 2010 to inform philanthropic efforts to use big data as a tool to help the urban poor. We’ll discuss how the map was made, what we got right, what we missed, and how this experience informs the Urban Tech Hub’s ongoing horizon scanning work. We’ll be joined by futurist Scott Smith of Changeist, author of the new book “How to Future: Leading and Sense-Making in an Age of Hyperchange” to hear about some of the changes in tech forecasting over the last decade.

Defending Density: The Future of Urban Systems in New York

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As the retail culling continues and the reconfiguration of office buildings gives way to more substantial retrofits, the commercial landscape of New York City’s neighborhoods is undergoing multiple, successive waves of change. How can new digital technologies make cities and urban systems productive again? What new sources of data on business, consumer, and workforce activity could be tapped to better inform both economic relief efforts and more resilient long-range planning? Urban Tech Hub Director Michael Samuelian will lead a conversation with local real estate, transportation, and economic development organizations on the future of enhanced urban systems and the future of New York City’s neighborhoods.