Nobel X in Urbanism conferences

The second annual Nobel X conference in Urbanism centers on urban futures in the face of overwhelming uncertainty.

During the same week as the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, scholars of all aspects of urbanism –planning and design, spatial analytics, new mobilities, theory and methods – come together at OsloMet.

The conference is organized by the faculty of the Smart Mobility and Urban Analytics program; Drs. Claudia Yamu, John Osth, Chaoru Lu and Daniel Piatkowski and features interdisciplinary guests from around the world.
 
This year´s conference will build on the momentum established in our inaugural NobelX conference.

The two-day conference includes featured presentations and podium discussions, capacity-building workshops to strengthen OsloMet´s research and teaching in Norway and globally, and social activities to highlight all that Oslo has to offer.

7th December

• «Multiscale planning» (Olivier Bonin and Pierre Frankhauser)
• 10.00 – 10.30 «Data-driven shared mobility planning in cities. The nuMIDAS project toolkit and how to use it in Serbia» (Simona Muratori, Jelena Stankovic´)
• «Urban transport and mobility in technology and culture» (Peter Norton)
• «Mobility and interaction» (Daniel Nordmark)
• «The 15 minute city: A critical reflection» (Beniamino Murgante and Chiara Garau)
• «The resilient city» (Aura Reggiani)
• «Mobile phone data and the city» (Marina Toger and Umut Türk)
• «The Data Disconnect in Cycling» (Daniel Piatkowski)
• “The Data Disconnect in Cycling” (Daniel Piatkowski)
• «Towards Cycling: Urban Design, sharing systems and last-mile logistics» (Viktor Andrade)
• «Tourism and destination management in cities» (Szilvia Gimotti)
• «Car presentation: Data collection with lidar» (Chaoru Lu)
• Panel discussion (Karima Kourtit and Peter Nijkmap)

8th December

• Thematic tables: 1. Data and policy (Daniel Piatkowski), 2. Energy and the city (Claudia Yamu), 3. Transport and Mobility (Chaoru Lu)
• Moderation of workshop: John Östh

8th to 10th December 2021, 17 local and international speakers from practice and academia in the fields of transport and land use planning, urban geography, mathematics, regional economics, analytical urban design, and architecture gathered in Oslo.

In addition, more than 60 people participated online.

Speakers from practice were from the municipality of Oslo, the Norwegian transport company Brakar and Sustasis Foundation in Portland, USA. Academic speakers came from various institutions in Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel and North America.

The conference was based on the fact that the society faces the dual challenges and threats of climate change and the COVID pandemic influencing our way of life and our cities.

We are increasingly capable in our reaction to rapid digital transformations, yet in need of new ways of thinking to solve the pressing issues of rapid urbanisation with growing inequality and require holistic solutions to integrated transport and land use planning for organising cities as a major social unit of our democratic society.

This inaugural conference was set up as a meeting place to share novel knowledge, networks and approaches across disciplines with participants from industry and academia. It afforded a chance to initiate new ways of thinking, operationalise ideas, and implement strategies in open and yet often deep and meaningful discussions.

The backbone for the conference was the new international master program of ‘Smart Mobility and Urban Analytics’ (SMUA) at OsloMet.

SMUA will educate future experts in developing practice-oriented solutions for sustainable transport and land use planning.

Academic content in the program:

Wednesday, 8th December

• Peter Nijkamp, 'City Love and Place Quality'
• Michael Batty, ’Digital Twins’
• Nicos Komninos, ‘Smart Ecosystems in the Universe of Intelligence’ 
• Wendy Tan, ‘Transport Poverty and Inequality’

Thursday, 9th December

• Jaewon Lim, "Smart Technology" for "Not So Smart" People in Urban Society
• Itzhak Benenson, ‘The Near Future of Urban Transport’
• Beniamino Murgante, ‘Modeling Post-Covid Cities’
• Karima Kourtit, 'Place-Specific Corona Dashboards for Healthy Policies'
• Podium discussion
• Chiara Garau, ‘Smart(er) Urban Governance in the Smart’ Era’

Friday, 10th December

• Juliana Pitanguy, Springer’s ‘The Urban Book Series’
• Michael Mehaffy, ‘Public Space in the New Urban Agenda’
• Marina Toger, 'The Pulse of Urban Life – Daily Mobility and Cellphone Data'
• Valerio Cutini, ‘The Weak Ties that Bind a City’
• Akkelies van Nes, ‘Measuring Permeability of Foreground and Background Street Networks’
• Umut Türk, ‘Socio-economic Response to COVID 19 in Cities’
• Nikos Salingaros, ‘Rules for Urban Space: Design Patterns Create the Human Scale’'
• Closing of the conference: Claudia Yamu and John Östh