Iskander Smit

In 2018, the first paper on the Near Future in Cities of Things was published. Seven years later, we took the initiative to conduct exploratory research to reflect on the state of cities of things. Or, put differently: how should we assess the current state of urban robotics and physical AI?

​In this interactive event, Iskander Smit will present the learnings from the research, and a panel of four of the approximately 25 interviewed experts will share their perspectives to kick off a discussion led by moderator Monique van Dusseldorp.
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The central question is how the developments might impact and inspire the design of future cities, things, intelligent systems, and the interplay between these.

​The panelists

• ​<strong>Maria Luce Lupetti</strong>; Assistant Professor in Design at Politecnico di Torino. She is co-director of POEL – Possible Entanglements Lab, a research group dedicated to investigating how people and technologies co-shape one another, and how design can help envision desirable configurations. She was the leading author of the first paper on Cities of Things in 2018. Maria Luce will reflect on the changes in human entanglement with the artificial world, particularly in complex technologies such as AI and robotics.
• ​<strong>Sen Lin</strong>; Senior Product Designer and AI Design Consultant. Sen was among the first students graduating in the Delft Design Lab Cities of Things. Sen just returned from a 2-month stay in China and will share his impressions from urban robotics there.
• ​<strong>Tomasz Jaskiewicz</strong> is a professor of civic prototyping at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. Tomasz is a founding partner in the creation of the Wijkbot platform for research through prototyping into urban robotics. He will share the learnings between experiments.
• ​<strong>Vera van der Burg</strong> is a designer, researcher, and Ph.D. candidate at TU Delft's Designing Intelligence Lab. Her research investigates how training AI models can become a reflective practice. With her research, she was awarded as Dutch Design Emerging Talent and FD Talent. She will reflect on the relations we build while applying (physical) AI.
• ​<strong>Iskander Smit</strong> is the founder of the Cities of Things, an expertise center for urban robotics and physical AI. Applying research through (speculative) design, connecting experts in knowledge events, and publishing via his weekly newsletter.

​Monique will involve other interviewed experts and participants in the event to reflect on the impact of urban robotics and physical AI on the practice of creative industries, design methods, and on relations between humans and AI.
​Before and after, there will be space to connect with other participants and explore the current Wijkbots.
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Schedule:
​15h00 - Doors open, mingle, explore Wijkbots
16h00 - Welcome and introduction to the results of the research by Iskander Smit
16h30 - Introductions of the positions by the panelists
17h00 - Interactive discussion with panel, participants
18h00 - Wrap up and drinks with bites
20h00 - End
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If you can only join part of the event, you are welcome to join later.
​Find more details about the program on the <strong>Cities of Things website</strong>.
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The event is powered by CLICKNL, and registration is free, including drinks.

Imagine a world where everyday objects are imbued with the power of generative AI. What possibilities and challenges would emerge? ThingsCon aims to explore this frontier by inviting designers to create provotypes of the near future “generative things”.

To ignite imagination and foster meaningful discussions, we like to use the concept of “provotypes” – provocative prototypes of generative things. These tangible glimpses into tomorrow are catalysts, opening up critical dialogues about our impending relationships with AI-infused objects.

The exhibition “Generative Things” premiered at TH/NGS 2024 on 13 December 2024 in Volkshotel Amsterdam and will travel to other places in 2025, sparking conversations and imagination. ThingsCon organizes this initiative in collaboration with the Master Digital Design of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Waag Futurelab.

15 April. Speculative Design Workshop; An Immersive Future Zine
Connected to Salon, we organize a speculative design workshop where we create a Future Zine that brings the provotypes to life using speculative design methodologies. The outcomes will be used to create immersive experiences with the provotypes that can be presented and discussed with the visitors of the future fest in June.

Preliminary program of the SDW
09:30 Introduction and icebreaker
10:00 Inspirations from the future
10:30 Discuss in groups per provotype possible future scenarios
11:30 Share and sync the different narratives
12:30 lunch
13:30 Create a contribution to the Future Zine
16:30 Share and wrap-up

The Future Zine is proposed as an online publication with immersive capabilities, the framework will be prepared by ThingsCon.

Location
The Speculative Design Workshop will take place Tuesday 15 April at the location of Master Digital Design, Theo Thijssen Huis building, 4th floor, Wibautstraat Amsterdam.
Read more on the backgrounds of the project on the website.

Imagine a world where everyday objects are imbued with the power of generative AI. What possibilities and challenges would emerge? ThingsCon aims to explore this frontier by inviting designers to create provotypes of the near future “generative things”.
To ignite imagination and foster meaningful discussions, we like to use the concept of “provotypes” – provocative prototypes of generative things. These tangible glimpses into tomorrow are catalysts, opening up critical dialogues about our impending relationships with AI-infused objects.

The exhibition “Generative Things” premiered at TH/NGS 2024 on 13 December 2024 in Volkshotel Amsterdam and will travel to other places in 2025, sparking conversations and imagination. ThingsCon organizes this initiative in collaboration with Master Digital Design of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Waag Futurelab, and is part of the Amsterdam 750 futures program.

14 April: exhibition and workshop
Next up, we’re taking Generative Things to Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Our next public event, scheduled for late 14 April, will feature:

• An updated exhibition with new and refined provotype designs
• An in-depth reflection workshop relating the provotypes to city life

We’re revisiting the provotypes to create “situated designs” that respond to Amsterdam’s unique context. By partnering with local societal organizations, we’ll develop specific scenarios to test our provotypes in real-world settings, bringing the future of Generative Things to life in our city’s streets and spaces.

The outcomes will be an inspiration and a point of departure for a speculative design workshop on 15 April to create a future zine. We have a separate RSVP for this workshop day.

The program of the Salon:
14:00-15:00 Visit the exhibition with provotypes
15:00-17:00 Workshop to sketch out interactions in the city with each provotype

• introduction on the backgrounds
• short 3 min pitches by designers of the provotypes
• discussing the provotypes in relation to the categories
• formulate takeaways

17:00-19:00 Share results, drinks
If you can not make it to the workshop but like to see the results, feel free to drop by at 17h.

Location
The Salon and the Makeathon will take place Monday 14 April at the location of Master Digital Design, Theo Thijssenhuis building, 4th floor, Wibautstraat Amsterdam.

Read more about the background of the project on the website.

Back in November 2014, we organized the first Dutch chapter of ThingsCon in Amsterdam, after the inspiring first Berlin edition in spring 2014. After 4 years in Amsterdam, 4 in Rotterdam en 2 Covid editions, we decided to go back to Amsterdam, and also go back to Volkshotel, to mark our 10 years celebration!

Our theme for this edition: Generative Things
The inspiration for this year’s conference is the transformation of the new generative artificial intelligence in our digital lives to the physical world, the objects we use, and the places we live. What will be the physical realization of the “generative twin intelligence”? What will it mean for makers and designers of these things? How will ethics play out, and what new models of use and trust will emerge?

The program is ready. Check the latest confirmed program here. They are all inspired by this theme.

• Workshops and talks
• Exhibition with the best work
• Specially commissioned exhibition

On the latter:
We want to create an exhibition commissioned by ThingsCon to explore the next decade of living with things. We hope to inspire designers and makers of future things. We like to explain the context of an experience that ignites debate and critical thinking by engaging our community through speculative objects and things.

Our program:
🎓 <strong>Thursday</strong>: long-form workshops for even more in-depth knowledge exchange and interacting with peers.
🎉 <strong>Thursday evening</strong>: celebrating 10 years of ThingsCon with special evening program with inspirational talks, music, and drinks
🎤 <strong>Friday</strong>: the good old mix of inspiring keynotes, short project-pitches, 2-hour workshops, exhibition, and meeting each-other.

This year, the regular price for one day is <strong>100 eu</strong>, and the full conference pass is <strong>175 eu</strong>. The ticket includes entrance and catering on the conference days. You are also invited to join our special Thursday evening program.

https://thingscon.org/th-ngs-2024/registration/

On 5 September, ThingsCon will team up again with the Human Values for Smarter Cities project to organize a Salon linked to the research project. This time, we are guests at Marineterrein in Amsterdam. We focus this meetup (and workshop) on participatory design for machine learning.

Don Quichot in the Smart City?
In this ThingsCon Salon, we will explore the changing roles of designers in contemporary developments involving human values and smart city technologies. As Kristina Höök and Jonas Löwgren suggest, when faced with a complex sociotechnical fabric that includes AI, designers should consider their work as “interventions into ongoing transformations over which they have limited control” (Höök & Löwgren, 2021). What implications do this statement and our experiences in state-of-the-art participatory design projects have for our work?

Workshop 16:00-18:00
We will start with a workshop in which we redesign an existing enforcement computer vision system with AI, not by focusing on efficiency or effectiveness. Instead, we focus on AI that helps improve citizens’ opportunities to prevent making mistakes or making appeals.

Mapping Use-time Contestability Loops
The workshop runs from 16:00 to 18:00 and will be dedicated to a workshop shaped and moderated by Kars Alfrink, a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft, specializing in contestable AI. The workshop has limited capacity.

Meetup 19:00-21:30
After a break for drinks and food, we will continue with the evening program from 19:00 to 21:00. Three speakers will discuss the workshop results and share their thoughts on the topic.

• Evelien Zengerink from the City of Amsterdam Computer Vision team
• Vera van der Burg, PhD at Delft University of Technology in exploring AI as tools for self-reflection
• Geke van Dijk, strategy director at STBY, a pioneering service design studio

The ThingsCon Salon will take place on 5 September 2024 from 16:00 to 21:30 in Amsterdam Marineterrein. We are guest at AMS Institute / Responsible Sensing Lab.
(Kattenburgerstraat 5, Building 027W, 1018 JA Amsterdam)

Please RSVP via these Meetup-pages:
– workshop (+ meetup) (limited capacity 20 participants)
– meetup only

Join us on 15 December for our annual ThingsCon event powered by CLICKNL. Participate in interactive sessions, be inspired by the keynotes, and view the thought-provoking projects in our exhibitions. And most of all, meet each other!

True to ThingsCon mission, we focus on a theme that we feel resonates with current developments and discussions that explore and promote the development of fair, responsible, and human-centric technologies for the IoT and beyond; our current working theme is <em>‘Un</em>/i<em>ntended Consequences’</em>. Read more on our website.

Friday 15 December will be our main conference day. With a mix of: interactive sessions, inspiring keynotes, pitches from the community and an inspiring design exhibition.

• Opening and closing keynote by Maria Luce Lupetti (TU Delft) and Bas van de Poel (Modem)
• 12 interactive sessions in two rounds
• Short project pitches
• Exhibition with the best design student work and case-studies from practitioners.
• Meet fellow participants during lunch and breaks, ending with drinks

Find more details on the program page!