Smart Cities and Urban Planning

Introduction

This workshop has been designed to introduce the principles of Smart City design and urban planning in the MENA Region. The aim is to develop the essential skills and competencies necessary for decision makers to  plan, identify and examine the objectives, advantages, drawbacks, models, stages and requirements of Smart City Urban Planning Sustainable framework. The workshop aims to enable municipalities, private sectors, non-profit organizations, and representative from science and academia to develop strategies for making our cities smarter, and accommodate the cultural dimensions of our societies. At the end of the workshop, the attendees should be able to acquire a comprehensive knowledge and practical experience about how to construct cities adopting smart growth principles, effective urban planning models, ICTs and low carbon energy systems.

Learning objectives

• Understand the concept of smart cities from different perspectives: innovation, policy, and practice.
• Identify drivers and challenges to smart cities development.
• Understand the building blocks of smart cities such as big data solutions, service-oriented models, and value networks.
• Compare top-down and bottom-up approaches to smart cities development.
• Analyse leading business models of smart cities around the globe to identify common characteristics in cities’ smart planning and development, while also noting differences between them.
• Evaluate the impact of smart city on a national and global scale.
• Develop a Smart City Regional framework for the MENA. 

Target audience

This training is suitable for policy makers, ICT practitioners, NGOs, architects, spatial planners, engineers, urban designers, researchers, academics, and students who wish to understand, examine, run, develop, and smart cities of the present and the future.

Course structure

• Interactive workshop with set of activities to help you engage with the knowledge and concepts introduced within the workshop.
• Your tutors will be on hand to guide you through the course and will expect you to bring to bear personal experience and reflection on the topics covered.
• Group work will be required for participants to engage in the workshop. Such activity allows participants to embed the new knowledge within their experience through active discussion and conceptual challenges.

Course material