What can AI do for Malmö
A group of monkeys gathered in the launch of Scandic Triangeln to talk about how to improve the city we live in and this was one of our most visited after works, so we will probably have a similar topic in the near future. Perhaps inviting some politicians as well to get some more realistic feedback on our thoughts and actually discuss questions that are currently in focus to see what AI can do to help. But even with today's loose topics we covered a lot of ground.
Preschool & education
We talked about tracking the progression of students using digital tools and perhaps move more towards the strategy of Khan Academy where the idea is the watch lectures at home and then do homework with the teacher in school and thus get help with the questions they have. This means that the quick student can progress to a level that is challenging and the slow student can re-watch the material many times in order to understand it better. You can also look at the Exercise Dashboard to see how much you have progressed. The main problem is that it is in English, but maby we will soon have machine translation and text to voice that is good enough to translate all the videos to Swedish or we have to create our own Swedish version of the Academy. There are some Swedish companies that are doing things for schools like the app Vektor from Cognition Matters and the E-school initiative from Göteborgs Räddningsmission. And there are a ton of other apps and websites that do similar things that is financed with advertisements ready for download in a tablet store near you.
Care & Support
Why is it called emergency reception when you have to wait for several hours before you get to see a nurse or a doctor? An you sit in a room with other sick people so if you were not sick before you will become, without any additional fees, before you leave. Why is it only the licker store that can tell you how long you have to wait before it is your turn? Why cant you have a virtual waiting room at the hospital so that you can see on your smart phone when it is your turn or even calculate the expected time for it to be your turn. Even a website where you could go to check how long the waiting line is at the emergency reception would help people make the decision if they are sick enough to wait for that amount of time, so they can decide to stay home and let more acute cases be handled quicker. Or perhaps create a sickness classification booth where you can enter and get a first opinion and then be prioritized in queue based on the acuteness of your symptoms compared with the other people waiting in line. IBM is already pioneering this work with Watson Health.
Urban Planning & Traffic
This became a topic all about bikes. What to do with the problem of bike theft? After covering everything from GPS trackers, smart locks, alarms, electric shocks and complete surveillance. We realized that maybe the people that get their bikes stolen also are the ones buying them back from the second hand market actually feeding this monster them selves. Though it is a problem that demands attention one real solution might actually be to use a concept like City Bikes. It may not work for all but it could reduce the number of bikes that could be stolen, and we also got the locked areas where you can place your bike and you need to pass though a locked door just to gain access to your bike.
Living, building & environment
Perhaps we should look at more automated ways to classify the energy usage and other important parameters of buildings in order to upgrade the standard of living, but today most of the focus should perhaps be on building new living areas if we are not to start living in Capsule Hotels. Another interesting topic is the vertical farming that is "growing" around the world. Plantagon is a Swedish company that has focus in this "field" but there are many others of different sizes around the world and many cities have already adopted vertical farming. Wouldn't it be the perfect next step for Möllan to build a huge biosphere containing a vertical farm and then people could buy fresh vegetables straight from the farmer. Another related company is BYLIFE in Lund, increasing the quality of life by bringing nature indoors.
Business & Jobs
"Robots are taking our jobs" say the sceptics "they will create even more new ones" say the optimists. Whoever is right we predict a period coming rather soon, where many jobs will be replaced and the people being replace do not have the know how to fill the new jobs created. Education to the rescue. There are already many players here trying to prepare people for new more high skilled jobs. But this is still a very multi faceted question that might need some extra focus in the years ahead. Luckily there are many free online resources for everyone to consume. Just take a glance at our link page. But the biggest problem is probably to motivate and inspire people to use these resources to prepare them for the future.
We also looked at the possibility of recognising "good" businesses more and give them credits for the good work they do in their community. It might be through grants as in the Street Cleaning Grant Program in Vancouver or by using an app like Love clean streets. Even Copenhagen is trying out a similar solution to get the help of it's citizens to clean up the city.
City & Politics
We are moving closer to the election and maybe modern technical solutions could be a significant factor in deciding which political party wins the election. We all know that technology is driving the progression of society, even though we have seen our fair share of back lashes. But in general, more focus on smart solutions to the problems we are facing might be perceived as "new thinking" and progressive. That is why we most certainly will host an after work on a similar topic soon. And we would love to be contacted by the people who work with these question and makes the decisions for an even more interesting discussion. For more information check out our contact page.
- Education, Farming, Bikes, Jobs