1.
Cities in the
Age of the
Platform
Getting the
Deal Right on
City Data
Smart Cities and Urban
Innovation Forum
UNSW 1 June 2016
Dr. Sarah Barns,
Urban Studies Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellow
Western Sydney University
Director, Esem Projects
Future Cities Advisor, Data61/CSIRO

2.
‘Life on Demand’
Media habits in daily life

3.
Metcalfe’s Law: value of a network is proportional to the square of the number
of connected users to the network

4.
‘A new science of
cities’
“New sources of data coordinated with urban policy
can be applied following fundamental principles of
engineering to achieve new solutions to important
age-old urban problems”
– Luis Bettencourt, Santa Fe Institute
THE STUDY OF THE CITY AS A SYSTEM…to
help it become more productive, livable,
equitable and resilient

5.
“Not since the planting of
cobblestones, the laying of water
mains, or the roll out of sewage pipes
have we installed such a vast and
versatile new infrastructure for
controlling and organising
our physical world”
Anthony Townsend, Smart Cities,
2013

6.
In 2012, for the first time ever, the TED Prize
went not to an individual, but to an idea on
which our planet's future depends:
the City 2.0

7.
“[From] 2012 it made less and less sense
to talk about 'the Internet’, 'the PC
business,' 'telephones,' 'Silicon Valley,' or
'the media,' and much more sense to just
study Google, Apple, Facebook,
Amazon and Microsoft.
These big five American vertically
organized silos are re-making the world in
their image. ”
-Bruce Stirling speaking to Kevin Kelly (Wired)

8.
Combine technology layer, data layer and
community layer.
APIs build ecosystems of producers and
consumers that deliver services to each other
on a common platform.
Platforms are software-driven innovation ecosystem

9.
‘The Age of the Platform-Play’

10.
What does the
Age of the Platform
mean for smart
cities?

11.
Smart Cities in The Age of the Platform

12.
“Nurturing platforms requires
thinking at the nexus of software
design and business strategy”
“The architecture of a platform is
inseparable from how it ought to
be governed” —Amrit Tiwana
“Platforms are only as useful as
the communities that use them”
—Tom Baker

13.
second wave of digital transformation in government – Gov.Uk’
‘Government as a Platform’

14.
Data Services
Constantine Kontokosta & team

15.
“Underlying every other crisis in
the city was an information
crisis.” – Detroit (Jerry
Paffendorf)

16.
CITY DASHBOARDS:
COMPARATIVE APPROACHES
WORLD COUNCIL ON CITY OPEN DATA PORTAL
(ISO 37210)

17.
Integrating open data with
performance monitoring
and governance?

18.
Governments lack access to
essential data to improve
data-driven decision making
Dealing with data shadows…

19.
Document &
measure
impact
Match public
challenge areas &
data custodians in
trusted
environments
Convene data
providers and
users
Experiment
and scale
Data
Collaboratives
Source: Gov Lab,
Verherst

20.
Technology &
data services
Digital
Entrepreneur
s
City
Governments
Citizens &
Researchers

21.
Thank you!
s.barns@westernsydney.edu.au
@_sarahbarns