SentientCity 2012 - International Workshop on Sensing, Modeling and Planning for the Smart Cities

The growing urban populations make cities increasingly important as the main space for modern human interaction and the current advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) demands and opens up the opportunity to develop and design infrastructures and architecture that enhance the lives of their inhabitants in ways which would have been until very recently unthinkable. Among different proposals, with the support of ICT, meta and mega-cities are seen as spaces where traffic and transportation services can be optimized, where individual citizen participation can be achieved and enhanced, where epidemic outbursts can be prevented, detected and managed, where public services can be monitored and adjusted on demand, and where people can live better, safer, and healthier. All those ideas are presented in a model that brings intelligence, integration, optimization, and computing to the city, creating the idea of an Intelligent City.
Much has to be done to move from initiatives that focus on techno-centric perspectives, on exploring the possibilities of current ICT, which create smart solutions, but not necessarily smart cities. This requires an effort where many solutions can be integrated into a larger infrastructure; where all these solutions add up to create the inputs for a larger purpose, where models describing the dynamics of the city can be defined; where models can be used for the purpose of planning and decision-making. Indeed we need discussions on how to create intelligent cities based on the idea where, from sensing, we move to models, and from there, to planning and decisions. Planning, design and management are all important to make an adaptable model that respects the whole life nature of cities for future generations.
This workshop aims to be a space where people are not only interested in creating, designing, planning and implementing ICT infrastructures for Smart Cities but can discuss the opportunities to create scenarios where different solutions can provide the information to see and understand the intelligent city in a more holistic perspective, where networks of sensors, can be used to sense the dynamics of the city, where data can be used to detect patterns, and to establish models and theories about the use and life of the cities and where the individual via body sensor networks becomes part of this. Moreover, in order to move towards the goal of intelligent and truly livable, vibrant cities, experts and stakeholders from various domains must work together. This workshop seeks to build a bridge between the technical expertise from the ICT community and the design intelligence of the urban design, architecture and planning communities. The workshop seeks cutting edge research contributions in the technical planning and modeling of sentient urban conditions as well as design efforts in orchestrating urban vibrancy and new social qualities through ICT.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
Social sensor networks
Sensor networks for urban environments
Large and small-scale health monitoring systems
Body sensor networks
Geographical information systems as decision supporting tools
Geographical information systems applications for the smart cities
Smart mobility
Urban mobility models (pedestrian and vehicular)
Green computing
Environmentally-friendly cities
Optimal resource consumption
Public displays for the smart city
Ambient assisted living
Simulation and modeling of complex and large scale systems
Communication networks for the smart city
Case studies for smart cities
Sociocultural challenges for the intelligent city