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If you could make a wish on behalf of The City 2.0, what would it be?
Today, TED announces the winner of the 2012 TED Prize: the City 2.0. The City 2.0 is the city of the future ... a future in which more than 10 billion people on planet Earth must somehow live sustainably, together. The City 2.0 is not a sterile utopian dream, but a real-world upgrade tapping into humanity's collective wisdom. The City 2.0 promotes innovation, education, culture and economic opportunity. The City 2.0 reduces the carbon footprint of its occupants and eases the environmental pressure on the world's rural areas. The City 2.0 is a place of beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life. The City 2.0 is the city that works.
A range of visionaries around the world will be advocates on behalf of the City 2.0. We are listening to them -- and to you.
What is your wish for The City 2.0? A wish capable of igniting a massive collaborative project among the members of the global TED community, and indeed all who care about our planet's future.
Share it below.
Daimon Sweeney
Section 1 of 9
How can we create “a massive collaborative project among the members of the global TED community, and indeed all who care about our planet's future?” Here is the outline of a plan for creating a global system of collective intelligence which continually evolves new and better ways for cities to function.
Based on local participation, this approach takes local culture, needs and resources into account, creates real change, connects people into local and global action-based networks, produces an evolving global resource of the best ideas for cities so those ideas can spread rapidly, and creates a TED-branded social ecology in collaboration with members and others, resulting in a powerful and growing force for positive global change.
As the annual TED Conference is the eye-catching centerpiece of the TED community, similarly, an IdeaFest in every interested city and town is the eye-catching local focus for an annual cycle of project-based civic evolution.
The process works like this: A qualified person or group convenes an IdeaFest and its associate process in a city or town. The IdeaFest rules are put forth by TED, building on the TEDx model, helping ensure quality and consistency and inspiring trust and participation through the credibility of the TED organization.
TED and its collaborators also create and host the communications infrastructure for all that follows. Sponsors could include the Clinton Foundation with its focus on cities and IBM with its Smarter Cities program, just for starters.
After appropriate preparation, the IdeaFest invites everyone in the city or town to contribute answers to the organizing question:
“What is something that would make (our city or town) better?"
Daimon Sweeney
Jumping to the systems level for a moment, this question remains the same across all participating cities and towns. Consistency is the foundation for interchangeability, enabling the creation of an organized global body of ideas, proposals, projects and results.
Back to the local event: The point of the question is not idle conversation but the creation of project proposals which can become real projects. Over perhaps three months (to keep the process intense and focused) people respond to the organizing question with their ideas, making connections and engaging in discussion aimed at developing good project proposals. People find each other by interacting around posted ideas that match their own interests and can meet up in person if that is feasible, even using MeetUp.com as a simple solution that already works.
Connections, discussion, proposal development and so on are all facilitated through the TED software as much as necessary, in conjunction with volunteer facilitators on the ground. Ex-residents and others from afar can also contribute project proposal improvement suggestions through the software system, Skype group discussions or other channels. If resources allow, promising proposals may get expert analysis, support in creating the proposal and coaching on presenting it.
Daimon Sweeney
The proposal development phase culminates in a PitchFest, the peak moment of the IdeaFest. The PitchFest is like the offspring of TEDx and Kickstarter, with Wikipedia as the godfather. The entire community is invited to be present in person or virtually. Pitches are timed, with the full proposal posted online to be studied. Anyone interested (wherever they are located) can pledge support of all kinds, not only monetary but time, office space, technical expertise, tools and equipment, land for planting, or whatever is needed, creating a potentially global network of shared intelligence, experience, engagement and support.
Each project will have its own thresholds to clear. Some may simply begin. A group deciding to help each other and others build gardens can just start whenever they decide to. Bigger projects like making a city self-sufficient in food (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2072383/Eccentric-town-Todmorden-growing-ALL-veg.html) could start with what’s available but would also require local government involvement to permit use of city property for growing food and the like. Other projects may need more extensive resources to get started, and will launch when the relevant thresholds are reached.
The progress of each project is transparently tracked online with regular reports. Along with room for individuality there is standardization to this as well, to assure full information and ease of understanding by readers. Making project updates could be as simple as filling in sections in an online form with the relevant information, images, etc.
Public tracking gives project members accountability, ongoing visibility, the chance to ask for input on problems, and the opportunity to attract support as needed. Anyone can subscribe to news feeds on any or all projects.
Daimon Sweeney
To make learning cumulative worldwide, project participants commit to creating or contributing to a manual others can use or adapt as they choose. It might be in the form of an evolving “state of the art” best-practices document, drawing on and linking to the specific examples, similar to Wikipedia but action-oriented. Expert volunteers might take on editing large sets of information such as urban agriculture. A standard format with editorial standards (as with Wikipedia) will make project documentation easily searchable online, easily understood by the average person, and as easy as possible to act on.
With each annual IdeaFest happening in a community, prizes are awarded to recognize existing and ongoing projects in numerous categories, with lots of recognition for everyone involved. This annual event can grow into a giant celebration of the city, focusing on how residents are taking their quality of life into their own hands. This event includes an assessment of each project and a report on positive changes since the previous year. This public event will help keep project participants focused on producing good results, will rightly celebrate their efforts and will inspire others to do likewise by presenting role models. Imagine the effect on young people of seeing civic activism so celebrated year after year, and of having such opportunities to engage in meaningful projects, with all the learning that would ensue.
The TED Global Cities 2.0 website is the local/global crossroads for all this activity. Any qualified community group or government can use the turnkey, cloud-based system to put on its own IdeaFest at minimal or no cost, removing two gigantic barriers (design and cost). The organizational support and confidence provided by using a proven system (well, when it is proven) greatly reduces another barrier.
Daimon Sweeney
Positive advantages include integrated access to resources such as the library of past projects, the evolving state-of-the-art “manuals” for each kind of project based on cumulative experience, online tracking and reporting, global visibility for local projects, the ability to contribute to the growing knowledge-base, access to distant support, and global networking with expert advisors and others engaged in similar projects. If major technical, organizational or other roadblocks appear, particularly repeatedly, they can be presented as challenges to the world’s problem-solvers and attract the best and most creative minds to develop solutions.
Ongoing and past projects and proposals, including status tracking and results, are searchable by region, community name and subject matter. This is the Wikipedia-like part, with the differences being it is action oriented and its organizing question is “What makes cities and towns work better?” rather than “What do we know?”
Theory (part 1 of 7): There’s a theory behind this whole approach which is useful to understand at this point. The theory is that shared questions are a fundamental mechanism of collective intelligence. Shared questions allow people to think together. Significant shared questions can elicit ongoing, deep engagement. For example, “What is something that would make (our city or town) better?” is a shared question, meaning any number of people (particularly those in that community and familiar with its needs and resources) can hold that question in mind and contribute ideas, experience, and other resources toward answering the question. “What makes cities and towns work better?” is another shared question at a higher level of generalization useful for a compendium such as a Wikipedia-style reference.
Daimon Sweeney
Theory (part 2 of 7): The collective contributions can be assessed as objectively as possible to produce the best available working answer or collection of working answers. Those working answers can improve over time by continuing to ask the question and find continually better solutions.
Theory (part 3 of 7): Shared questions work from the ephemeral, such as “Where shall we go for lunch?” to the essentially immortal (so long as there are interested intelligent beings) such as the organizing question of science, “How does nature work?” In light of this question-centric model, science can be understood as an extended and evolving set of working answers to the question “How does nature work?”
Theory (part 4 of 7): Because such large, organizing questions can have any number of subquestions, a question-based knowledge model has infinite room to grow. Examples of subquestions include “Why are plants green?” “What causes tides?” and “What are those bright things in the sky at night?” Subquestions in turn can have any number of their own subquestions, to as many levels as desired. No matter how large or complex such a system gets, every piece is always directly and logically traceable to the original organizing question. Each piece is either a logical subquestion or part of the collection of working answers, including the search for better ones.
Daimon Sweeney
Theory (part 5 of 7): We humans use shared questions all the time (for instance, organizations can be seen as answers to questions, which leads to some interesting possibilities) but mostly we do not recognize the full process. Used consciously, as in this city-based system being proposed, the approach systematically produces continually improving results over time because people do not get stuck on answers, which tend to result in a status quo attitude (“This is how we do it”).
Theory (part 6 of 7): Instead, continually asking the question allows answers to evolve as things change, which they may be relied upon to do. Changing resources, numbers, technology, experience, opportunities, insights, discoveries, alliances, needs, legal environments, etc. might indicate a new or altered approach would be a better answer. Because the dedication is to answering the question in the best possible way rather than to any particular answer, adaptive change comes far more easily with this approach.
Theory (part 7 of 7): Further, a question-based system of collective intelligence can evolve its collection of subquestions and working answers limitlessly over any time span, as science has and continues to do. A new area of inquiry can be opened simply by asking a new subquestion. The organizing question also acts as a screen, selecting for and admitting better answers as they are validated and demoting less good ones to the status of false or inadequate. The entire system continually optimizes for the results stated in the question, whether that is a growing understanding of how nature works or, as in this case, growing knowledge, skills, resources and actuality of creating better communities. As with open source software (and the question-based approach is a model for how open source works as well), much input from wide participation means rapid evolution. End of theory section.
Daimon Sweeney
Consequences of the IdeaFest process: One overall outcome of the IdeaFest process is a growing and evolving library and collaboration space, rich with experience-based possibilities, resources and networking. Communities, groups and individuals anywhere can draw upon this for their own projects even if they don’t mount a full IdeaFest, so it is a collection and distribution system of the best ideas from everywhere.
Building on that function, outstanding ideas and ways to implement them in each useful area can be identified and spotlighted to encourage their rapid and wide dissemination. For example, the “liter of light” (a clever way of bringing light into dark slum dwellings that requires no electricity and very low cost) would be a candidate for this treatment (http://youtu.be/o-Fpsw_yYPg ).
As the IdeaFest recurs annually, results build in each participating community and worldwide. Larger numbers of people become involved in a growing number of projects aimed at making each participating community better. Tracking the impact would become very impressive very soon, and be a good mechanism for attracting sponsors and still more participating cities and individuals.
Daimon Sweeney
As people engage with their neighbors around meaningful aims, social capital will build. Participants will gain confidence and self-respect along with project management, presentation and other practical and interpersonal skills. As they find and work with each other they will build connections and a sense of community. More and higher quality social connections improve mental and physical health, along with disaster resilience, providing perhaps significant additional benefits. Perhaps most important, the idea that what happens is up to the people, not the powers that be, will take root and spread.
Thus, while much happens online the face to face, community-level connections are vital. The whole political spectrum might become engaged because everyone has ideas about how to make their community better. If this opportunity is handled well (a creative challenge to be sure) the quality of public discourse and public information will improve.
Forms of engagement can shift from polarized opposition to creative inquiry into the shared question, “How can we make our city or town better?” Discussions (perhaps facilitated) of what “better” means could be rich and might move people beyond ideological preconceptions through human interaction and the simple but powerful experience of being heard. This civic and civil engagement is one of the less obvious but most important aims of this project.
Finally, and obviously, there will be an annual TED Global City 2.0 gathering and event celebrating the most amazing projects and their instigators and leaders from around the world. This will create enormous global visibility, build momentum for the whole project and help shift the direction of global culture toward sustainable well-being for all beings.
If you have read this far, thank you. I welcome your thoughts in reply. My website for this line of thought is http://www.MissionQuestion.com
Kenneth Lo
One direction I’d be interested in seeing the TED folks explore would involve using these social and ecological perspectives to develop principles for adaptive management, approaching “city 2.0” not as a discrete artifact or end goal, but more as processes of urbanization unfolding and interacting across varied natural and cultural landscapes.
Of course, amazing people, communities, and institutions have been addressing various facets of cities. How can TED harness the diversity of its community to work on these challenges and mutually support the multitude of local experiments? Perhaps there is some role for the network of TED communities and urban residents across the globe to assist with sourcing, comparing, and “ground truthing” various initiatives -- under the wide array of local conditions -- to investigate what and how particular activities can scale up, and also expand the menu of urban development/transition philosophies and potential solutions.
I’d add that these approaches might include how decision makers can better confront conditions that change rapidly and in unpredictable ways at various scales. This might include ways to
*loosen up formal processes into more flexible principles that acknowledge the informal nature of much urban land use
*nurture places/neighborhoods that help people of all ages and backgrounds thrive (leave no neighborhood behind)
*facilitate regional urban processes that respect, protect, and incorporate natural landscape systems that support wildlife habitat and robust ecosystems
*make cities part of “reconciliation ecology” and healing places
*encourage resource and community relationships that enhance capacity to cope with variation and shocks (food, weather, population shifts, etc.)
Tom Ponessa
By design, every decision, action and object in City 2.0 will enhance the natural world in some way; improving biodiversity, keeping air and water clean. As the Romans did, City 2.0 will mandate solar access. Every human-made component will have multiple purposes. Material, energy and water flows will be managed to cascade through the city- every useful bit will be squeezed out. Buildings will be reused many times- at the end they will be disassembled into useful materials
City 2.0 will reconnect us with all the functions of living - educate us about growth cycles, energy, biology, the food chain and so on. It will likely be a more labour intensive city and an incubator for local entrepreneurs. It will be a city composed of engaged citizens, rather than passive consumers. Its form and walkability will liberate its occupants and their time. Its mixed-use, mixed-income, mixed-age composition will encourage interaction and creativity.
Technology will enhance City 2.0. Telecommuting will be the default mode of working for those whose jobs can be done that way. Transit, cycling and vehicle sharing will make up most of the wheeled transportation. City 2.0 will be made up of 20-minute neighbourhoods to make living equitable & enjoyable for all ages and abilities
Kristina Meyers
Wendy Brawer 20+
Interacting with information is central to City 2.0. I wish we could co-create an engaging marker system so the relevant features of each 2.0 site will become public knowledge. Adaptable for buildings, infrastructure, public space, routes and districts, these markers would include a QR or other link to collect responses and highlight nearby/similar initiatives and relevant events. Co-created in an open studio, a range of new Green Maps, mobile apps and data visualization resources would be developed to assure social inclusion in all aspects of the vibrant City 2.0.
Lawrence Raitinger
If members of a community truly believe, "We're all in this together", the natural progression is one that is sustainable ecologically, financially, and socially.
Without going into the details in this post, I feel we already have the knowledge and technology to move in this direction, but lack the will at a scale that makes it happen.
Hazel Onsrud
More information is also available here: http://rael.berkeley.edu/financing
Momo Lien
So here’s the conclusion, we can provide TED community with a quiz which can simply tell which segment a person stands, and a specific and useful method for TED audience to help each other to learn TEDTalks, we already suggested some students to put into practice, and turns out that it really works. All details are in our videos, please, please, please, watch them in an unusual way- watch them over and over, again and again(especially when a Chinese try to show idea in English, big challenge). And we are now preparing our third video, which is about an even faster way for people to truly learn TEDTalks, we’ll post it when it’s done.
We believe no matter which segment a person stands, everyone can become the ones who play the game through this method! That’s why we said in the videos: We believe we can change this curve, and we will have more innovators and early adopters to make it a different world, thank you for your patience!
http://youtu.be/YFAuzx-AP1M
http://youtu.be/TNZFLzbQEYs
http://youtu.be/KgkhgQUbg4w
http://youtu.be/-RGq0k8P7cg
If you have any question, please contact us, we are looking forward to any opportunity of spreading the ideas.
Momo Lien
There’s still another question: We all knew that videos provide more information than books, there are lot of subconscious messages in videos, but I believe the problem is, the vast majority how their brain operate when they act, they think and they learn, is very different from those 16% people, most people use the outer circle of “Golden Circle” of the “what” level when they learn, and that’s not gonna drive their behavior. Using old habits to learn no matter how wonderful ideas, the ones who watch will still be the ones who watch, this explains why so many ideas had been published, but still lots of people can’t change their lives after they reading those books. If TED can provide audience with more specific and useful method to learn, that might be the only way to achieve, as what I said: shifting people to “Innovators” and “Early adopters” segments, and we will really be able to become “the ones who plays the game” that we hope to all be.
Momo Lien
I believe people who had watched: How great leaders inspire action, sure will be familiar with what I say below.
According to ”The law of diffusion of innovation”, it’s a standard bell curve that is split up into different segments: Innovators, Early adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards. Consider there are three types of people in the world:
Innovators, Early adopters -The ones who play the game
Early adopters, Early Majority -The ones who watch the game
Laggards-The ones who have no idea that the game is being played
(for more details please google: The Law of Diffusion of Innovation)
The cruel fact is, 84% people in the world can’t truly participate in the game. And it may be a little unacceptable for people that they are not in the rarely 16% group. But I believe what TED celebrated is open those great ideas from those innovators and early adopters, hoping one day that those audience, who learnt enough to contribute their own ideas, which means to shift people to “Innovators” and “Early adopters” segments by learning from TEDTalks. The biggest question is: how people get to know which segment they stand in different points in time?
Steven Raymond
You work out the details!
James Farrelly
Ariel’s Wood will an offering to those who seek a place for contemplative retreat and a gathering place for those who wish to enrich human experience through a cultivation of common ground in the Arts and Sciences.
The aim of Ariel’s Wood is to establish a place that is open for people who wish for silent retreat as well as explore creative pursuits in art and science. Ariel’s Wood will be both a playground and nesting place for ideas and experiences that help us connect to one another and seek our deepest human potentials.
The worlds of Art and Science are opposite sides of the same coin, bound together by the passion for discovery that lights the passage of ages. Ariel’s Wood hopes to create an open exchange of ideas that trace their currency to our most precious ancient cultural traditions as well as look forward to our most innovative humanistic discoveries. Art programs would include coffeehouse series in an intimate and small venue (capacity circa 100), theatrical performances, studio recording & workshops, artist-in-residence opportunities, book and film series, art installations within the main performance hall, music instruction, sacred dance & yoga classes, and workshops in handicraft and folk art. Science programs would include film and lecture series, photographic exhibits, ecology walks, conservation studies, and gardening. The cumulative intent would have Ariel’s Wood network with any and all groups, locally and globally, who are aspirants in the work and play of a ‘verifiable spiritual ecology’ that serves Great Nature. We will assist in sponsoring people and projects in America and around the world who see the need to ‘pay forward’ and create a more habitable and dynamically evolving world. Within the sphere of Ariel’s Wood, the phrase “work in progress,” will become an honorable striving…its work to preserve the idea of life as continuous education and thus fill a need for those who are thirsty seekers
Zachary Kacpura
Zared Schwartz
Thinking about the people, if we use positive promotions on green technology, then the environment should be cleaner by more people using green technology. Then again, these promotions are overlook by the abnormal feel towards green technology and the social norms of using common but not so environmental friendly machines. Moreover, people generally focus on the present environment rather than be worried about the future environment. For example, Tim, a 10 year old at a elementary school, is doodling on a piece of paper. The recess bell rings and he throws the piece of paper into the trash can rather than to the recycling bin, since he is rushing to recess. To clarify, regardless of age, we generally focus on present things that are related to ourselves as individuals rather than future things that are related to ourselves as coherent groups. The only way city 2.0 can better itself is to put green technology as commonplace technology and this can only happen if we teach the people the immediate benefits of green technology and not the delay benefits even if they are better. In other words, we just have to set up conferences, workshops, and interactive websites on the immediate gratification of green technology. Also, we should only promote green technology rather than put down commonplace technology, since the people will only understand the harmful effects of non-environmental friendly technology, but not the benefits of green technology. To sum up, to improve the environment, focus on the people not the city.
Andrew Davies
Also... central to the visioning... I wonder... what are the dreams and visions for cities that are founded on eternal human needs and desires? For instance the human need & desires to have a voice, to be heard, to have dignity, to love, to be loved, to see the stars, to play, to experience joy, to be touched by the natural world.... and so many more. What is it that is eternal that can be made inherent in the design of cities.
Also... to question... what's impossible for us to do today... but would be desirable if it was possible... (I mean in 100 years time it probably will be!) One thing that comes to my mind... what if children in a city could directly experience the full wonder and glory of the night sky from the heart of a city? Crazy idea... but if it was possible... I think it would be transformational. Imagine being able to lie on the grass of a city park and see the stars like you do from a remote mountain top. ;-)
manuel ruiz-echarri
Robert Ferry
A clean energy future creates a more healthy, peaceful, egalitarian, and happy City 2.0. And sustainability is not only about resources and consumption, but also about cultural depth and social harmony. Hopefully, the renewable energy power plants of The City 2.0 will inspire the future with their artistic beauty and innovative concepts.
Yvonne Kiaupa
passions and areas of knowledge. Instead of putting on an event to support a cause, City 2.0 will put out a cause and form a Neighborhood to meet it.
A mirror that reflects Good.
Yvonne Kiaupa
In City 2.0 each aspect of our lives will have a platform where citizens can learn information and how to get involved in organizations within their real cities.
Companies and organizations will have an opportunity in the Business Center to recruit virtual employees who collaborate on projects giving access to a global employee base, as well as, actual volunteers from their areas.
City 2.0 Emergency Response System (including the siren) will be able to give real time access to updates and information regarding disasters and relief efforts happening on a global level and City 2.0 citizens will be given the opportunity to mobilize, make donations directly to organizations already equipped to respond and share resources that are available.
Citizens of City 2.0 will be given the opportunity to meet together in real cities all over the globe during the TED Conferences with a live feed. They will meet in places that have larger seating capacities and up to date sound systems such some public schools and large churches. Registration fees will be donations of food and completed volunteer hours with participating non-profit organizations.
TEDMinor or TEDJr will be a traveling hands on forum hosted by schools around the world to give children the ability to be innovators and problem solvers and attend a live City 2.0 classroom.
In the Religious Neighborhood citizens can believe in whatever religion they want in the real world but in City 2.0 the only religion allowed is LOVE. The world will be taught how to feed, clothe, house, and more importantly educate it’s real communities and City 2.0 citizens will help through micro finance and various organizations that empower and awaken the human heart with acts of kindness and generosity.
Cont....
Yvonne Kiaupa
Citizens will have to register and will be organized into neighborhoods of strengths and passions. (www.strengthfinders.com). Each neighborhood will be presented with a real time situation, some great and some small. The citizens of the neighborhood will be given an open forum with a time period and a basic platform to build off of. They must within the required time frame come up with a collaborative solution. Neighborhoods with complementary strengths will be given the opportunity to weigh in on the plan.
Real world cities and governments will be given the opportunity to register and view the collective solutions and weigh in on the discussion with actual information that could present obstacles, challenges and flaws in the plan etc. No one person in the community will be given the opportunity to complete a real time situation alone.
Opinions will be kept to a minimum and ideas and solutions will be the agenda. Ten people standing around discussing what they “think” will not save a persons life. Arguments about ideas, positions etc will be classified as “weeds” and will require virtual landscapers, which will patrol the neighborhoods, to quickly extinguish and remove them.
TED citizens will be able to have a full access library (the web) designed for learning and education, complete with real life tutors and instructors (other citizens). The University system will be on a global level and able to teach degree programs where you learn subject matter for FREE and then take test ( proctored ) to get your degree. TED talks will be a series of lecture halls. Students can earn Certificates of Knowledge on any subject they want.
Cont....
Daniel Appell
If we view the city as a giant communication devise transferring information from person to person, community to community, generation to generation, era to era then we can start to understand the true value of living in a city. The more efficient that transfer of information becomes; that is, the more a city produces, and the less a city consumes and wastes, the more valuable city development becomes.
If our primary purpose is to improve the efficiency of urban form, then we will be guided towards an improved urban environment each little step of the way.