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Dr.rer.nat. Dr.phil. Norbert Streitz (Ph.D. in physics, Ph.D. in cognitive science) is a Senior Scientist and Strategic Advisor with more than 35 years of experience in ICT. He is the Founder and Scientific Director of the Smart Future Initiative (SFI) launched in 2009. This was preceeded by various activities: Deputy Director and Division Manager at Fraunhofer Institute, Darmstadt, Germany; Lecturer at Computer Science Department, Technical University (TU) Darmstadt; Assistant Professor at Technical University Aachen (RWTH). At different times of his career, he was a post-doc at University of California (Berkeley), a visiting scholar at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto), and at the Intelligent Systems Lab (Tsukuba Science City), Japan. He has published/edited 30 books and authored/coauthored more than 160 peer-reviewed papers. His work covers many areas: Cognitive Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction and Experience Design, Hypertext/Hypermedia, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Ubiquitous Computing, Ambient Intelligence, Privacy by Design, Hybrid Worlds, Smart Manufacturing/ Industry 4.0, Automated Driving, Smart Cities and Smart Airports.

Citizen-Centered Design for Self-Aware and Cooperative Hybrid Cities

This keynote provides a critical, but constructive reflection and evaluation of current technology-driven developments summarized as the ‘Smart-Everything’ Paradigm. It is mainly characterized by smart services based on data collected by a variety of sensors embedded in an Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, monitored and controlled by software using Artificial Intelligence (AI), resulting in an increasing degree of automation and privacy infringements. Humans are more and more removed from being the ‘operator’ and thus in control of their interactions and decisions in virtual and physical environments, because they are considered as the cause of errors. The keynote proposes to redefine the ‘Smart-Everything’ Paradigm towards Human-Technology Symbiosis by applying a human-/citizen- centred design approach, keeping the human in the loop and looking at the interaction and balance of mental structures, social structures, information structures and urban architectural structures. This is achieved by considering various design trade-offs: complete automation vs. human control and empowerment, importunate smartness vs. privacy. Application examples are taken from the domain of ‘smart’ cities, automated driving and urban spies with the goal to move beyond ‘smart-only’ cities towards humane, sociable, cooperative, self-aware hybrid cities.

Presentation of the keynote