Smart Cities
ETH Zurich
  • Start Date: 01 Jul, 2017
  • Self-Paced
  • Study Content: Videos


Learn how data and information impact the design, sustainability and resilence of future cities.

Course Fee: Free
Certificate Cost: 50.00 USD

Introduction

Introduction Video

Course Description

This course is made available through the eLearnAfrica and Edx partnership.

Cities are first and foremost built for people, and in today’s world, people produce large amounts of valuable data, thus contributing to what we call “smart cities." As almost every building and every city is a prototype, these communities are in the early stage of development and require specific attention and expertise as we advance.


Smart cities, such as Zurich and Boston, consist of human-made structures or environments that are, in some capacity, monitored, metered, networked and controlled. With this functionality, combined with stationary sensors and mobile devices, data and information have become the new building materials of future cities. Using this data, citizens are now beginning to influence the design of future cities and the re-design of existing ones.


In this architecture course, you will learn the basics of information cities and urban science research, as well as how dynamic behavior and citizen-driven learning differentiate the responsive city from the smart city. The cities we present and develop in this course use the stocks and flows of information as the main drivers of change.


To deepen your knowledge of smart cities and give a perspective on the future of these cities, we also introduce the concept of citizen design science, a combination of citizen science, urban design, and cognitive design computing. Participants will furthermore have unique access to a design research platform for citizen design science. The intelligent use of data and information is at the core of this course, and these concepts will be the next generation of participatory design and design computing environments.


This course is part of the “Future Cities” XSeries, and builds on the experiences from our first two urban MOOCs: Future Cities and Livability in Future Cities.

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ETH Zurich

ETH Zurich is one of the leading international universities for technology and the natural sciences. It is well-known for its excellent education, ground-breaking fundamental research and for putting its new findings directly into practice. It offers researchers an inspiring working environment and its students a comprehensive education.

 

Founded in 1855, ETH Zurich today has some 18,000 students from over 100 different countries, 3,800 of whom are doctoral students. About 500 professors currently teach and conduct research in the areas of engineering, architecture, mathematics, natural sciences, system-oriented sciences, and management and social sciences. ETH Zurich regularly appears at the top of international rankings as one of the best universities in the world. 21 Nobel Laureates have studied, taught or conducted research at ETH Zurich, underlining the excellent reputation of the institute.

 

Transferring its knowledge to the private sector and society at large is one of ETH Zurich's primary concerns. It does this very successfully, as borne out by the 80 new patent applications each year and some 260 spin-off companies that emerged from the institute between 1996 and 2012. ETH Zurich helps to find long-term solutions to global challenges. The focal points of its research include energy supply, risk management, developing the cities of the future, global food security and human health.

This institution is available on eLearnAfrica through partnership with Edx.

You may be able to download course materials after enrolling in this course. If not, all of the necessary course materials provided by the course instructor will be available on the provider's course page.
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Effective Date: September 22, 2016