SMART URBAN DATA Conference

This event concludes the research project Urban Big Data for Economic Development, promoted by the Departments of Public Law (DiPIC), Mathematics, and Physics of the University of Padova. The initiative is funded by Regione Veneto and the European Social Fund.

Over the last few decades, the information society has produced an enormous amount of data. The Covid crisis has just spotlighted how we need data to tackle the many complexities of our world. Health care and public security are just the tip of the iceberg. We have definitively realized the usefulness of data to promote the prosperity of our communities. The informative resources indeed can contribute to the local development in many different ways. Data allows better monitoring of the urban environment, consistent development of urban mobility, continuous improvements of the quality of city services, assessing the effectiveness of planned strategies, exploiting the full potential of the different metropolitan areas.

This informative asset can benefit local communities as much as the individuals and their businesses. But this gradual data-intensive transformation requires adequate technical skills and robust social awareness about this transition. On the one hand, a valuable data-driven approach needs a good understanding of the models underlying processing operations and developing new solutions to tackle new emerging problems. On the other, a solid social awareness about this technological revolution requires particular sensitivity about the individual and collective consequences of these evolutions and the ability to regulate them. The research project joined the technical and legal expertise to approach these challenges holistically. The aim is to promote the consistent development of new data-driven solutions for local communities.

The Conference Smart Urban Data aims to reward the efforts made by the Departments and the researchers involved in this initiative. On this occasion, the researchers will share the results of their studies with the academia, the general audience, and the corporate partners committed to the project.