Practices of cross-sectoral collaborations are displaying promising results in how smart city can be steered in a direction where pressing societal and environmental issues can be potentially addressed in more nuanced, equitable and locally specific ways. While corporate players are building the digital foundations of a primarily market-driven form of “smart urbanism”, other actors are trying to bend it towards a more participatory and co-creative direction.
Concepts like “open-source ecologies” or “digital urban commoning” have started to enrich the technological narratives of the smart city. In this session we will explore models of smart city governance from two vantage points – technological potentials and social innovation. The guiding question for this session is: How can we connect societal aspirations with the development, use and ownership of digital technologies?