Array of Things

Smart Chicago’s Array of Things Civic Engagement Goals & Model

Denise Linn

Smart Chicago has committed to educate and engage residents with the new Array of Things project, which is operated by the Urban Center for Computation and Data (UrbanCCD) — a research initiative of the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory — also in partnership with the City. This engagement work aligns with our guiding principles. We want to facilitate a conversation in Chicago about data, sensors, the Internet of Things, and how we can put these things in service to the people.

Put simply, it’s Smart Chicago’s job to make sure that the public knows about this project and that any resident who has questions or input is heard.

Array of Things is an urban sensing project — one of the first of this kind and scale. Sensors will be placed across the city to measure livability factors like climate, pedestrian traffic, air quality, and flooding. The sensors will collect data about our city. That data will then be released publically for residents and researchers to interpret and use.

Smart Chicago Engagement Goals

The first goal is to build citywide awareness around Array of Things. We’ll do this through writing, convening, polling, and otherwise communicating with residents.

The second goal is to aid the operators of Array of Things in their research and community needs. Here’s how we describe that work on our project page:

Specifically, we’re going to work together in the design and implementation stages of Array of Things to consider the general public’s use cases for the network and creating applications relevant to everyday life in Chicago. The main thrust of our work will be to design and implement a strategic plan to inform and engage the public in the deployment and utilization of AoT.

The third goal is to aid the City of Chicago in gathering input on the governance and privacy policy for Array of Things. A draft of this policy will be released in mid-June and a two-week public comment period will follow. This governance and privacy policy was developed in cooperation between the operators of the Array of Things and the City, with input provided by an independent policy board including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

Managing feedback on the governance & privacy policy

Several methods will be used to collect resident feedback on the policy: public meetings, online forms, and Madison.

The OpenGov Foundation’s tool Madison is a government policy co-creation platform that collects public edits on policy or legislation. Here is how the OpenGov Foundation describes Madison:

Madison is a government policy co-creation platform that opens up laws and legislation previously off-limits to individuals and the Internet community. Launched to battle the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), it has since been used to power citizen participation in government policymaking in the United States Congress. With Madison, you can access the law as it’s being written, leave comments, annotate specific content, and interact with other civic-minded participants. Madison brings the lawmaking process straight to you, and gives you a say in your government’s decisions.

During the public comment period for the Array of Things governance and privacy policy, the text of the policy will be posted on Madison. Interested Chicagoans will be able to sign on to Madison to annotate, comment on, or support the text.

Public meetings to learn, engage, and share

Smart Chicago will host public meetings in which residents can learn about Array of Things from the project’s operators, ask questions, and provide input through polling and community discussion.

These public meetings will have several components:

  • A presentation on Array of Things from the project’s operators
  • Community discussion and Q&A
  • Resources for further action. We will have Laptops set up for residents to see the Array of Things website and provide feedback on the Array of Things governance and privacy policy

We will also have people working through our documenter program to record, archive, and share the proceedings.

We are holding two community meetings during June. The first will be at Lozano Library on Tuesday, June 14th from 5pm to 7pm. The second will be at Harold Washington Library on Wednesday, June 22nd from 5:30pm to 7pm. More details on those events will follow on the Smart Chicago blog.

If you would like to attend a public meeting or stay updated on the governance and privacy policy, fill out this form:

Fill out my online form.

Smart Chicago Welcomes Ash Center Summer Fellow Glynis Startz

Smart Chicago

linkedin_croppedToday Glynis Startz joins the Smart Chicago Collaborative as a summer graduate fellow from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University. Glynis will inform Smart Chicago’s work to make Chicago a smart city that truly works for everyone. She will primarily assist with, provide strategy for, and write about the Array of Things Civic Engagement work.

Glynis is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where she has been transitioning from international development work to focus on helping local governments make the best use of data and technology. Before arriving at the Kennedy School she was a Research Analyst for Innovations for Poverty Action, working on randomized control trial program evaluations for poverty reduction interventions.

Please join us in welcoming Glynis Startz. Follow her @glssea on Twitter!

 

Resident Engagement with the Internet of Things: The Case of Aberdeen

Denise Linn

At Smart Chicago, we’re developing methods for resident engagement with the Internet of Things. This year, I will be leading a series of activities and events that will bridge the current gap between the urban sensors measuring our city and the people who live in the city. We believe that ‘smart city’ technology should benefit and be informed by the public and that we should work towards a smart city that truly works for everyone.

Fortunately, there is a framework in place to build on from the UK. On April 28, 2016, Professor Pete Edwards and Caitlin Cottrill from the University of Aberdeen presented at the University of Chicago Convening on Urban Data Science. Their project in Aberdeen is called “Trusted Things & Communities: Understanding & Enabling A Trusted IoT Ecosystem.” The goal of the project is to create a community-based approach to building trust into the Internet of Things (think: networked sensors gathering data).

At the 2016 Convening on Urban Data Science at the University of Chicago, Dr. Cottrill from the University of Aberdeen discussed privacy and the Internet of Things

Presenters from Aberdeen emphasized the importance of authentic engagement to a trusted ‘smart city.’ The text from the slide above is an excerpt from “The Internet of Things: Making the Most of the Second Digital Revolution” by the UK Government Office for Science and created context for the conversation:

“There are more connected objects than people on the planet. The networks and data that flow from them will support an extraordinary range of applications and economic opportunities. However, as with any new technology, there is the potential for significant challenges, too. In the case of the Internet of Things, breaches of security and privacy have the greatest potential for causing them.”

The “Trusted Things” Project in Aberdeen

IMG_7034 smallThe “Trusted Things” project in Aberdeen aims to inform and engage residents on the public value, governance, and privacy implications of a local Internet of Things project.  It focused primarily on the Tillydrone district of Aberdeen.

Here is a summary of the questions of interest and main goals of the “Trust Things” project from the original grant description:

What are the appropriate governance arrangements covering IoT deployments? How do we deliver meaningful accountability? How can we develop an understanding of the interplay between individuals and devices, and the wider relationship to social/cultural norms? What are the attitudes of citizens and communities to privacy and risk in an IoT context? How should risks and benefits be communicated? How do users make informed decisions to judge the trustworthiness of information?

Answers to these (and the many other questions that will certainly emerge) will lead us to develop prototype solutions that will be evaluated with members of the Tillydrone community. Our ambition is to create a means by which a user can review the characteristics of an IoT device in terms of its impact on their personal data, answering questions such as: What type of data is it capturing? For what purpose? Who sees it? What are the (potential) benefits and risks? They also should be able to exert a degree of control over their data, and be guided to assess its reliability and accuracy.

To find out what residents want from urban sensors, ask them

Professor Pete Edwards remarked how, when asked “Do you Trust the Internet of Things?”, the natural response of residents was, “What is the Internet of Things?”. The “Trusted Things” approach, therefore, checked assumptions about residents’ knowledge, opinions, and priorities by simply engaging with them — talking to real people about a complex, but important piece of urban technology.

From the experience of the “Trusted Things” project, here is an inventory of all of the information and control requested by the public from their local sensors:

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People want to know who is using data and for what end. They want to know who controls the devices and who controls the data. People want access to the data and potentially to interact with the resulting data. They feel they have the right to change the devices and data’s behavior. Residents also believe that the they deserve notice of changes in the sensors’ capabilities or data gathering processes.

An example of a resident connection with the Internet of Things? In Aberdeen, there are sensor-enabled bus stops that citizens can interact with on their mobile devices. The mobile app tells interested residents what the sensor is doing, what it’s measuring, and what that bus system data will become.

Privacy & the Internet of Things

IMG_7030 smallProfessor Caitlin Cottrill overviewed the privacy concerns and governance issues surrounding sensor devices in the Internet of Things.

Cotrill pointed out that the Internet of Things is inherently different than other forms of data collection residents might be familiar with. Why? Sensor data isn’t static like census data. Instead, it’s spatially and temporarily detailed. Becauses these devices collect data continuously and always in the same specific place, these data have the potential to point to more sophisticated information: habits, routines, and health indicators, for instance. If the sensors happen to be capable of collecting personally identifiable data, privacy is a potential public cost.

This threat is why “privacy by design” is embraced. “Privacy by design” simply means that personal privacy is considered throughout the development of an Internet of Things project. Privacy is an ongoing concern that shapes the planning, building, engagement, and deployment or an urban sensor. Privacy isn’t an afterthought.

Cotrill also explained that it was a best practice for the creators and collectors of data to write and share an official privacy policy. It is also customary to publish governance or administrative procedures that surround the collection and sharing of sensor data.

To read more about privacy principles surrounding smart city technologies, see “Privacy by Design: 7 Foundational Principles,” developed by Ann Cavoukian, the former Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada.

Chicagoans & the Internet of Things

ArrayofThingsLogo-smallLast week, the Chicago Tribune wrote two stories about the Array of Things project — an urban sensing project operated out the the University of Chicago Urban Center for Computation & Data and Argonne National Laboratory. Both stories raised issues of privacy and resident engagement.

The first, “Array of Things sensor network to be installed in the Loop this summer” overviewed the new timeline for deploying the sensors in the Loop this year. It also referenced the Array of Things privacy policy to be released in mid-May — a policy collaboratively created by the City of Chicago, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Smart Chicago, and several other partners. The second article, “Chicago seeking ‘smart city’ tech solutions to improve city life,” echoed privacy concerns:

But already the city’s nascent efforts to collect environmental data are sparking concerns about further erosion of individual privacy in a city already outfitted with police cameras, red light cameras, in-store cameras and public transit cameras. And, perhaps most critically, some observers question whether the collection and analysis of data will lead to meaningful improvements to urban life, as advocates suggest, or just enrich big tech vendors.

These concerns make authentic, inclusive resident engagement and the lessons from Aberdeen all the more relevant for Chicago. If the University of Aberdeen case recommended one central idea, it was this: community-based and community-centered dialogue is a key ingredient to implementation.

To read background on the Array of Things urban sensing project go to this website. To read more about Smart Chicago’s civic engagement work in Array of Things, visit our project page.

Big Data & the Public Good: A Conversation about Array of Things at SAIC

Denise Linn

On April 4th, Illinois Humanities hosted “Big Data & the Public Good” at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The event overviewed the Array of Things urban sensing project and facilitated a conversation on the role of technology in contemporary society. Smart Chicago’s Executive Director Dan O’Neil moderated the event. The featured presenters were Douglas Pancoast and Marissa Lee Benedict.

This program was organized by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was supported in part by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. On the event website, the event’s framing questions on big data, technology, and democracy were listed: 

What is the relationship between information technology, urban space, and the public good in the age of big data? Where do “smart cities” initiatives like the Array of Things – which doesn’t collect any information about individuals – fit into contemporary conversations about privacy and surveillance? How can the arts and humanities help our society think through these issues?

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Douglas Pancoast, an Associate Professor of Interior Architecture and Designed Objects at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, designed the Array of Things sensor enclosures along with Satya Mark Basu. Pancoast gave background on the project and shared the evolving iterations of the design:

Pancoast overviewed the functionality of the Array of Things nodes — that they will measure air quality, standing water, noise pollution, wind, light, pedestrian traffic, and other environmental factors. Wired Magazine called Array of Things a “Fitbit for the City.”

The second speaker, Marissa Lee Benedict, gave an artist’s perspective on Array of Things. Benedict is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Sculpture and Fiber & Material Studies, and works as the Program Coordinator for the Arts, Science & Culture Initiative at the University of Chicago. As an artist, Benedict can approach technology with a different perspective — she can see the art in data and fiber-optic cables. She can also assist with activist gestures in a way other people working with technology cannot.

What is the value of open data from urban sensors?

Several themes arose from the audience questions at the event. The first theme centered on the expected benefits of Array of Things and the data it would produce.

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Pancoast pointed out that society has always placed value in creating and investing in archived, searchable collections of information. Organizing and sharing the data produced from an urban sensing project arguably has the same societal value of building and filling a library with books.

Still, communicating the value of collecting data through urban sensors also means articulating compelling, relevant use cases of the data. The value of open data from this smart city infrastructure is less clear unless there are specific examples of how data can be turned into local action:

Pancoast shared several problems that could be identified and illuminated by Array of Things data. Some examples:

  • Understanding how exhaust activity at O’Hare impacts surrounding property values
  • Understanding how noise pollution in certain areas of the city should impact zoning
  • Understanding the source of standing water

One specific case highlighted was Albany Park. Albany Park has a high incidences of flooding. If we could watch it, monitor where the water goes, how long it takes to evaporate and see how it correlates to other environmental factors, the problem can be better defined.

Engagement & Participation

Of course, problem identification isn’t enough to catalyze change. Communities have to be involved and empowered to act on the new information. In this light, another main theme from the event was resident engagement: what type of engagement is needed, who to engage with, and how to do it well. Specifically, there was an interest in how Chicagoans might broadly engage with the Array of Things project outside of targeted efforts in schools and youth programs. At Smart Chicago, we are committed to this broad engagement with urban sensing and the Internet of Things.

Benedict shared the following thought-provoking questions with the audience:

questions AT

Dan O’Neil shared some of the best practices that Smart Chicago has gleaned: do engagement work as openly as possibly, document your process and planning, invite everyone, and “fetishize the outputs.” One recent example of model of engagement is Smart Chicago’s work with the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force Community Forums.

This event facilitated an interesting conversation about data, participation, and urban sensors — a conversation that needs to be continued openly, interactively, and across different venues in Chicago. Smart Chicago is committed to broad community engagement on the Array of Things project. To learn more about this work, visit our project page.

Themes from #NNIP Dallas 2015

Denise Linn

The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a network of trusted city organizations committed to collecting, analyzing, and sharing neighborhood data in service to their communities. Partner organizations convene twice a year to share their work and collaborate on topics from policing to tracking investments in neighborhoods. Last week, I attended the NNIP meeting in Dallas, Texas.

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It’s worth noting that the humans behind the number crunching and data visualizations were of extremely high quality. I was struck by the camaraderie, creativity, city pride, and good ole fashioned work ethic coursing through the NNIP culture.

It’s also worth noting that any conference or meeting that starts with a “what’s your favorite dataset?” icebreaker is just awesome.

Here’s a look at the major themes that arose throughout the three days of conversations, panels, and tours.

Neighborhood Data Needs Context

It was no accident that presenters from Dallas, Austin, and other cities had trouble making sense of neighborhood indicators without also nodding to historical and social context.

The first panel of the NNIP meeting was just as much about the origins of geographic inequity as it was about the data of geographic inequity. Nakia Douglas of the Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy, John Fullinwider of Lumin Education, Regina Montoya of the Mayor’s Poverty Task Force in Dallas, Theresa O’Donnell of the City of Dallas, and Donald Payton of the African American Genealogy Interest Group discussed the city’s “divides” – especially the prominent north-south divide.  The panel pointed out that these modern inequalities stem from both historical and present racial discrimination.

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Living out this need for context, NNIP scheduled tours in Dallas. I had the opportunity to visit the Cottages at Hickory Crossing, the city’s first Housing First community. The 50 approximately 400 square foot single occupancy homes are for the homeless, mentally ill, and previously incarcerated. Future residents of the Cottages will have access to a suite of supportive on-site health and social services.

We walked through the construction, asked questions, and learned about the evaluation plans paired with the program. Even before the residents have moved in, the Cottages are planning an evaluation of the initiative – tracking resident outcomes and savings to Dallas taxpayers, for example. Residents are those who incur the highest cost to taxpayers by remaining homeless, less healthy, and less supported.

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By the way, the Cottages at Hickory Crossing have their own Target registry if you would like to help furnish the homes!

NNIP Partners as Local Leaders & Conveners

Several NNIP partners discussed how they lead the conversations and collaborations around data within their cities. Many hold “Data Days” – events usually involving trainings and/or collaborations around neighborhood datasets of interest. Milwaukee’s Impact Inc. is holding their first Data Days this week. Charlotte, NC held their Data Days earlier in October.

One of the most interesting examples of data leadership? Every month Cleveland’s NNIP partner, the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western University, convenes all of the city’s organizations that collect data so they can share their work and build up a citywide data catalogue.

To accomplish their local work, NNIP partners form strong, trusted relationships with government agencies, police departments and other public collectors of data. During the meeting, partners what it took to open up in-demand local data and information for residents. One of my favorite insights came from Data-Driven Detroit (D3) who shared concrete advice for cities working with police departments to open up data.

Going forward, I hope NNIP partners can continue to discuss how data can build and repair community relationships in our cities. In Chicago there is so much work to do in this area. Data can be open and free, but if residents don’t trust it, there is still work to be done. Our own Kyla Williams spoke to this on social media while following the NNIP meeting remotely:

Data for Local Action

NNIP isn’t just about the data for data’s sake; it’s about turning data into informed local action. At the end of the day, if the data aren’t useful, used, or noticed then they are worthless. It’s all about democratizing information for community empowerment and smart policy decisions. This theme echoed several times throughout the NNIP meeting. One example was in Impact, Inc.’s mantra: “No data without stories, no stories without data.”

During the meeting, NNIP dared its partners to make their tech ecosystem. What does that mean? It means taking inventory of information lifecycles in your city and where residents and local organizations fall in those process maps. After all, it’s not enough to know how data is collected, analyzed, and repurposed; cities also need to know how neighborhood indicators and data stories can be turned into smart policy changes and smart local programs.

Here at Smart Chicago we’re also been thinking about ecosystem definition, turning data into action, and formulating meaningful resident engagement around Chicago’s data work. Between Array of Things, WindyGrid, and last year’s Chicago School of Data, there’s a lot to talk about! There are also essential Chicago partners with excellent neighborhood data: DePaul’s Institute for Housing Studies, the Woodstock Institute, and the Heartland Alliance. We need to work together to centralize our neighborhood data, engage with residents and make sure that Chicago isn’t just a “smart city,” but a smart city that works for everyone.

NNIP as a Community of Learning

The NNIP meetings are called “meetings” and not conferences for a reason. There was a palpable roll-up-your-sleeves attitude across the participating partners. I heard stories of people traveling to friends and collaborators in other cities to help replicate successful work nationally. Again, this is a great group of humans.

Those of us visiting NNIP or attending for the first time certainly saw the value of these meetings. Collecting, using, and disseminating neighborhood data to improve your city can be slow work with long-term gains. Having a supportive national network facilitating peer learning seems like an essential ingredient to progress.

Well said, April! Let the homework begin!

To see all NNIP documentation on the Dallas 2015 meeting, see their website.

Toward a Smart City That Works for Everyone

Smart Chicago

White House LogoYesterday the President announced a new “Smart Cities” Initiative that will invest over $160 million in federal research and leverage more than 25 new technology collaborations to help local communities tackle key challenges.

Through a series of grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the administration is seeking to “bring academic researchers and community stakeholders together to unlock transformational progress on important challenges”. One of the NSF grants is for our partner, University of Chicago and their Urban Center for Computation and Data (Urban CCD), which is running the Array of Things project. Here’s how the NSF describes the grant:

UrbanCCD - outlines 2012$3 million for the University of Chicago to support the creation of the Array of Things in Chicago, the first such network to serve as an infrastructure for researchers to rapidly deploy sensors, embedded systems, computing, and communications systems at scale in an urban environment. Comprised of 500 nodes deployed throughout the city of Chicago, each with power, Internet, and a base set of sensing and embedded information systems capabilities, the Array of Things will continuously measure the physical environment of urban areas at the city block scale and unlock promising new research trajectories.

Array-of-Things-LogoLast month Smart Chicago began a collaboration with Urban CCD to “further efforts by both organizations to make technology and data more accessible to citizens and to use data to impact policy that betters resident’s lives”. Specifically, we’re going to work together in the design and implementation stages of Array of Things to consider the general public’s use cases for the network and creating applications relevant to everyday life in Chicago. The main thrust of our work will be to design and implement a strategic plan to inform and engage the public in the deployment and utilization of AoT.

Smart Chicago is providing guidance on how best to allocate resources to designate AoT as a platform that improves the lives of Chicago residents as well as propose and design apps for the use of AoT by the residents of Chicago that are informed by the needs and aspirations of those residents. One main role is to work to include the voice of residents in the development of the AoT platform through convenings and other modes of communication & collaboration.

internet-of-things-council-logoI also serve on the ITA Internet of Things Council, whose mission is to “to drive advancement of IoT technology, policy and industry, establishing Chicago and the Midwest as an epicenter of IoT”.

As always, our focus is on how technology can improve the lives of regular residents of Chicago and the entire region. We are devoted to bringing resident voice into the rooms where technologists create features, where scientists decide specifications, where policy makers set direction. More to come.