webinar

Join us on Wednesday, December 20 at 12:00 (EST) as Geothink will host its fourth Geothink&Learn video conference session on our launch of the Open Data Standards Directory.

Speakers include myself, as converner, Rachel Bloom, a project manager of Open Smart Cities in Canada at OpenNorth; Andrew Nicklin, GovEx Director of Data Practices; Nicolas Levy, a McGill University undergraduate student in Urban Systems and Geographic Information Science (GIS); and, Julia Conzon, who will join Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) as a Data Statistical Analysis Officer in January 2018.

Thursday we continued with our Geothink & Learn Seminars. This time, it was Governing Artificial Intelligence, with me, Pamela Robinson, Fenwick McKelvey, and Elizabeth Judge.

Abstract: Cities worldwide are seeing a rapid expansion in the promotion of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms to assist in governance. While AI is often heralded as a means of optimizing and making more efficient various domains of city-citizen interactions (such as transportation, real-time citizen notifications, predicting urban change), many of its promises and threats have been hyperbolized in popular media. This panel will bring together leading academic experts to discuss the opportunities, challenges, and implications of this transition as they apply to cities and citizens, with a focus on governance and policy in a Canadian context.

What are the emerging AI shifts to city planning and design? How is AI shaping governments and governance? What are the current factors shaping AI policy? How do we hold AI accountable, especially when we don’t know how AI works? What is the impact of public-private partnerships that emerge out of AI and smart city adoption? What are the social implications of AI, and how can we better regulate to prevent bias?

On November 14, we continue with our Geothink & Learn Seminars. Webinar #2 was entitled, The Future of Open Data, with Peter Johnson, Pamela Robinson, Teresa Scassa, Marcy Burchfield, and Jean-Noé Landry. Listen to the webinar.

Our last year of Geothink is a year of webinars. We begin our Geothink & Learn series with Pokémon Go. Over the course of our research , we have studied how technology shapes and changes the ways individuals, community groups, government and the private sector work together. One particular technological development, an augmented reality game developed by Niantic for iOS, emerged over the summer of 2016. Pokémon Go raised many questions for our co-applicants, partners and collaborators, and the community at large. Watch the webinar.