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Smart Cities: Urban Innovation & Design Thinking

Smart Cities: Urban Innovation & Design Thinking

Smart Cities: Urban Innovation & Design Thinking

UC San Diego Design Lab Associate Director Michèle Morris recently joined venture capitalist, entrepreneur and author Greg Horowitt at a “Community Fireside Chat” hosted by SCALE. SCALE is a startup accelerator that provides funding to exceptional companies developing technology for urban innovation. SCALE partners with prominent local city officials, universities and corporations to provide “smart citizens” with the resources to tackle urban problems.

“Design thinking is critical to creating smart city solutions,” said Michèle Morris. “Design thinking involves group thinking for a multi-faceted approach that really looks to find the root of city problems.” The talk was held at one of San Diego’s premier co-working spaces, Downtown Works, and moderated by Daniel Obodovski, co-author of The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things, a book about the upcoming technology revolution. Mr. Obodovski was formerly the director of business development at Qualcomm and director of strategic marketing and business development at Motorola Germany. During the event, Morris and Horowitt helped clarify how startups can utilize human-centered design thinking and smart-city solutions to address urban problems.

The talk also included a lively discussion on how human-centered design can be applied to smart city technologies such as sensors, networks, data analytics, machine learning and robotics. Morris and Obodovski explained how these technologies are leading to new “smart city solutions” for transportation, parking, sustainability, climate action and open data city projects and proposals.

“We were thrilled to have Michèle Morris and Design Lab join us to help further our understanding of urban innovation and design,” said Obodovski. “At SCALE, we set our focus on helping entrepreneurs and start-up companies get to the next level in the urban innovation space. We believe we are at the perfect moment in time to bridge the divide between talent and technology, by providing support to entrepreneurs who are bringing great ideas to urban innovation,” he added.

UC San Diego Design Lab Associate Director Michèle Morris recently joined venture capitalist, entrepreneur and author Greg Horowitt at a “Community Fireside Chat” hosted by SCALE. SCALE is a startup accelerator that provides funding to exceptional companies developing technology for urban innovation. SCALE partners with prominent local city officials, universities and corporations to provide “smart citizens” with the resources to tackle urban problems.

“Design thinking is critical to creating smart city solutions,” said Michèle Morris. “Design thinking involves group thinking for a multi-faceted approach that really looks to find the root of city problems.” The talk was held at one of San Diego’s premier co-working spaces, Downtown Works, and moderated by Daniel Obodovski, co-author of The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things, a book about the upcoming technology revolution. Mr. Obodovski was formerly the director of business development at Qualcomm and director of strategic marketing and business development at Motorola Germany. During the event, Morris and Horowitt helped clarify how startups can utilize human-centered design thinking and smart-city solutions to address urban problems.

The talk also included a lively discussion on how human-centered design can be applied to smart city technologies such as sensors, networks, data analytics, machine learning and robotics. Morris and Obodovski explained how these technologies are leading to new “smart city solutions” for transportation, parking, sustainability, climate action and open data city projects and proposals.

“We were thrilled to have Michèle Morris and Design Lab join us to help further our understanding of urban innovation and design,” said Obodovski. “At SCALE, we set our focus on helping entrepreneurs and start-up companies get to the next level in the urban innovation space. We believe we are at the perfect moment in time to bridge the divide between talent and technology, by providing support to entrepreneurs who are bringing great ideas to urban innovation,” he added.

UC San Diego Design Lab Associate Director Michèle Morris recently joined venture capitalist, entrepreneur and author Greg Horowitt at a “Community Fireside Chat” hosted by SCALE. SCALE is a startup accelerator that provides funding to exceptional companies developing technology for urban innovation. SCALE partners with prominent local city officials, universities and corporations to provide “smart citizens” with the resources to tackle urban problems.

“Design thinking is critical to creating smart city solutions,” said Michèle Morris. “Design thinking involves group thinking for a multi-faceted approach that really looks to find the root of city problems.” The talk was held at one of San Diego’s premier co-working spaces, Downtown Works, and moderated by Daniel Obodovski, co-author of The Silent Intelligence: The Internet of Things, a book about the upcoming technology revolution. Mr. Obodovski was formerly the director of business development at Qualcomm and director of strategic marketing and business development at Motorola Germany. During the event, Morris and Horowitt helped clarify how startups can utilize human-centered design thinking and smart-city solutions to address urban problems.

The talk also included a lively discussion on how human-centered design can be applied to smart city technologies such as sensors, networks, data analytics, machine learning and robotics. Morris and Obodovski explained how these technologies are leading to new “smart city solutions” for transportation, parking, sustainability, climate action and open data city projects and proposals.

“We were thrilled to have Michèle Morris and Design Lab join us to help further our understanding of urban innovation and design,” said Obodovski. “At SCALE, we set our focus on helping entrepreneurs and start-up companies get to the next level in the urban innovation space. We believe we are at the perfect moment in time to bridge the divide between talent and technology, by providing support to entrepreneurs who are bringing great ideas to urban innovation,” he added.

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San Diego, together with Tijuana, has placed a bid to be designated the 2024 World Design Capital , a selection that will be finalized this October.

A San Diego nonprofit called the Design Forward Alliance was created with the help of numerous community and design groups to coordinate with Tijuana representatives and prepare the bid package.

Michèle Morris, associate director of the UCSD Design Lab and president of the Design Forward Alliance, is very optimistic about this region’s chances for success.

“We do feel confident that we will make the short list,” she says. Morris also is associate director of the Design Lab at UC San Diego, which helped launch the alliance in 2016 following an inaugural Design Forward Summit in downtown San Diego.

Win or lose, Morris notes that the bidding process has strengthened ties and fostered new creative ideas for our region.
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So, what is Johnson’s research?  Johnson conducts HCI research, primarily focusing on XR. As Johnson describes it, “XR is an umbrella term for augmented reality, augmented virtuality, mixed reality, and virtual reality.” She says to think of it as a spectrum where one end is the real world alone, the other is complete virtual reality, and everything in between is varying mixes of the two. Johnson’s research primarily focuses on this mixed middle ground. “The majority of my research focuses on how we can use mixed reality or extended reality to help a novice…get help from an expert.” She then poses the example of both surgery and CPR. Johnson’s research explores ways for an expert to provide instructions to the novice as if though they were in the same room. Her goal is to help bridge the distance between novices and experts, both physically and skill wise, while also decreasing the amount of time a person receives aid. “By the time a medical personnel arrives at the scene, it’s already been 7 to 10 minutes, so each minute counts for the person’s life,” she explains. “You don’t have time in that 10 minutes to train the people around to be able to do CPR or any other sort of resuscitation, same with surgery.” 

As Johnson continues to conduct her research in this field, she’s excited for what the future holds for this technology and the ways she can contribute to it.  

How They Got There: Janet Johnson

Graduate student Janet Johnson is currently working towards her doctorate degree in Computer Science, while also conducting HCI research in the UCSD Design Lab, primarily focusing on XR (extended reality).

So, what is Johnson’s research?  Johnson conducts HCI research, primarily focusing on XR. As Johnson describes it, “XR is an umbrella term for augmented reality, augmented virtuality, mixed reality, and virtual reality.” She says to think of it as a spectrum where one end is the real world alone, the other is complete virtual reality, and everything in between is varying mixes of the two. Johnson’s research primarily focuses on this mixed middle ground. “The majority of my research focuses on how we can use mixed reality or extended reality to help a novice…get help from an expert.” She then poses the example of both surgery and CPR. Johnson’s research explores ways for an expert to provide instructions to the novice as if though they were in the same room. Her goal is to help bridge the distance between novices and experts, both physically and skill wise, while also decreasing the amount of time a person receives aid. “By the time a medical personnel arrives at the scene, it’s already been 7 to 10 minutes, so each minute counts for the person’s life,” she explains. “You don’t have time in that 10 minutes to train the people around to be able to do CPR or any other sort of resuscitation, same with surgery.” 

As Johnson continues to conduct her research in this field, she’s excited for what the future holds for this technology and the ways she can contribute to it.  
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