Key Information
About the content
Learn about Smart Cities within the context of management of urban infrastructures. The introduction of Smart urban technologies into legacy infrastructures has resulted in numerous challenges and opportunities for contemporary cities and will continue to do so. This course will help you to understand how to make the best of these smart technologies in your cities’ legacy infrastructures. Over the past few years, advances in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have significantly challenged the traditionally stable land scape of urban infrastructure service provision. This has resulted in increasing interest from both technology vendors and public authorities in the transition of cities towards so-called “Smart Cities”. Although such “Smart technologies” can provide immense opportunities for citizens and service providers alike, the ICTs often act as disruptive innovators of urban infrastructure service provision. In this MOOC, you will gain a thorough understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with the Smart urban infrastructures, namely Smart urban transportation and Smart urban energy systems. Over the journey of this 5-week online course you will learn about the most important principles for the management of Smart urban infrastructures as well as the applications of these principles in the transportation and energy sectors. This course does not have any prerequisites. However, to take the most away from of this MOOC, we strongly encourage you to enroll in our other MOOC on the Management of Urban Infrastructures, which has been widely praised by learners. Through this course, you will: - Gain a deep understanding of the nature of disruptive innovations (smart technologies) in urban infrastructure systems; - Learn about state-of-the-art strategies for effectively managing the transition from legacy infrastructures to smart urban systems; - Study the management of the transition phase from legacy infrastructure systems to smart cities by supporting innovations while avoiding early lock-in; and - Understand potential applications of the materials learned in this course within the context of the management of smart urban transportation systems as well as smart urban energy systems.
Syllabus
- Week 1 - Introduction to Smart Urban Infrastructures and Smart Cities
‘Smart City’ is a notion that is widely, and sometimes not appropriately, used by urbanists across the globe. This week will help you to get a more clear understanding of this notion by using a rigorous conceptual framework, which is based on the systems theor... - Week 2 - Smart Urban Energy Systems
Smart Energy Systems are one of the top priorities on the agenda of local governments, nation states and technology suppliers. In this week, we deep dive into the energy sector to explore some of the most important managerial considerations in the transition p... - Week 3 - Smart Urban Transportation Systems
Many Smart Transportation Technologies are already tested on the roads and in cities across the globe. Driverless vehicles as well as car and ride sharing solutions are not anymore futuristic visions for urban transportation systems; but realities that pose si... - Week 4 - Towards Smart Cities: part 1
The transition of legacy cities to Smart Cities is not a spontaneous process. To get the transition process right, and to the benefit of citizens, cities have to adopt effective management and governance approaches to successfully deal with numerous complexiti... - Week 5 - Towards Smart Cities: part 2
Management of Smart Cities calls for different approaches from conventional urban management approaches. In this week, we focus on the role of city government in the network of actors who play an important role in management of Smart Cities.
Instructors
Matthias Finger
Professor
EPFL, ITPP, MIR, IGLUS Lab
Content Designer
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, English: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) is a research university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specialises in physical sciences and engineering.
One of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, the school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:
Educate engineers and scientists to the highest international standing
Be a national center of excellence in science and technology
Provide a hub for interaction between the scientific community and the industry
EPFL is considered one of the most prestigious universities in the world for engineering and sciences, ranking 17th overall and 10th in engineering in the 2015 QS World University Rankings; 34th overall and 12th in engineering in the 2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
Platform
Coursera is a digital company offering massive open online course founded by computer teachers Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller Stanford University, located in Mountain View, California.
Coursera works with top universities and organizations to make some of their courses available online, and offers courses in many subjects, including: physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, data science, and other subjects.
