The Data Citizen Driven City
Can you imagine a city where citizens gather data about what they most care about?
This project consists on a technical, social and urban process that is taking place in Medialab-Prado in Madrid. Its goal is to create a distributed network of citizens that aims to know more about their environment using realtime sensors and tools.
We have a Device Library that offer citizens the right tools to measure and understand their surroundings. All the devices and prototypes of the library will be Do It Yourself and the manuals for their building and assembly will be made available. Translation of the building and assembly manuals into Spanish will be promoted. No technical knowledge of electronics will be needed to understand them. All devices will be based on open technologies.
The aim is to learn by doing, to promote losing fear by prototyping and working in groups and within the community to meet local needs. For each data gathering device and prototype in the city a workshop will be held for its building. Collaborative and team work will be promoted and problem solving and implementation of improvements in the devices will be supplied.
Periodical meetings will be organised to study the use of devices. Presentation of new devices and testings will be promoted.
In the meetings we will study the data obtained, what can we do with them and how. Mapping data including the data obtained with prototypes will be the first project resulting from common study.