Martha Thorne talks about Smart Cities with young people from AIESEC

Madrid, March 29, 2017. The Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, Martha Thorne, recently led a webinar for the AIESEC community on the current situation and future of Smart Cities. During her talk, Martha shared definitions of what a smart city is and provided real world examples so that participants could reach their own conclusions on what really makes a city smart.

What type of city would you like to live in, and why?

Over half the world’s population now lives in cities and the trend towards urbanization is continuing rapidly. As centers of activity and innovation, cities have great potential.  However, there are also adverse effects ranging from pollution to increasing inequality among residents.  The idea that higher densities can provide more efficient use of resources and better quality of life underpins the Smart City concept.  But will our future cities be intelligent as well as smart?   Do all residents want the same thing from a smart city?  What do young people want from a smart city?  In the end, the city is not a computer, but rather the people who reside there.

These are some of the questions that were addressed in the course of the webinar, which centered around what type of city the participants would like to live in, and why. Technology featured heavily in the ensuing debate, during which the dean proposed a concept of a city as a system in which a range of different services are provided and where big data, made readily available to multiple institutions and types of users, play a pivotal role in making it work.

AIESEC members followed the webinar from cities all over the world, including Paris, New Delhi, Wroclaw, and Bangkok, participating actively with questions both during and after Martha’s talk. The message that the dean wanted to get across was that they needed to think about what kind of services made citizens’ lives easier.

The conversation between Dean Martha Thorne and the AIESEC members stressed the relevance of smart cities for young people, a topic in which those interested, can know further  through the newly launched Master in Real Estate Development, a program that explores the increasing relationship between real estate and the making of a city.

AIESEC is the world’s largest organization led by young people. It provides them with international experiences which are practical and self-didactic. It permits them to see the world in a way that enables them to make a difference and discover what really is important for them.

If you missed the webinar, you can see it at:

https://www.facebook.com/AIESECglobal/videos/10154346131226820/

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