KT4D at the 7th Annual International Conference on Social Work and Urban Development

to
Muttenz, Switzerland (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW)
keynote

Background

The 7th International Conference "Urban Development and Social Work" was dedicated to the diverse and often contradictory developments, uses and practices of the digital in order to explore the possibilities and limits of digital change in the sense of a just city. The focus was on the following questions:

  • How does the digital transformation affect sustainable urban development, participatory democracy and social justice in urban areas?
  • How do digitisation and socio-technical developments influence the current and future planning, control and development of cities?
  • Which mechanisms of in- and exclusion arise from the digitisation of urban spaces? How does the socio-technical change affect already marginalised social groups and what new forms of marginalisation does it produce?
  • What prerequisites and framework conditions are needed to make the current development of digital technologies usable for a socially just city?
  • What role does social work play in the digital transformation processes of urban spaces? What approaches and methods can it make usable for this? Where and how can social work take advantage of the digital transformation?
  • How do civil society actors, initiatives and social (protest) movements use digital? How do they influence urban developments?
  • How do digital technologies, infrastructures and tech companies change coexistence in urban spaces? How do they affect the perception, use and production of cities?


The conference enabled a critical examination of questions about the digital transformation of urban spaces as well as the playful testing and learning of digital developments and approaches. It aimed at all interested parties from science and professional practice who deal with urban and district development as well as spatial issues. Members of different professions and disciplines such as social work, architecture, urban studies, computer science, civic tech, geography and planning, administration, sociology, economics and art were addressed.

 

KT4D at the Event

Elizabeth Calderón Lüning, Research Manager at the Democratic Society, presented KT4D during  her keynote at the 7th Annual International Conference on Social Work and Urban Development at University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW.

Her presentation centred around AI in cities (how AI in cities could be just an acceleration of Smart City narratives, focusing on technological fixes instead of actual problems facing cities, and  if we don't make democratic decision on if, how and when AI should be integrated into our urban infrastructures), as well as civic engagement in digital and AI policy.  While addressing the KT4D project, she specifically addressed democracy-in-the-loop approaches to AI development for AI tools in democratic exchange processes.