NEW BOOK PUBLICATION Climate Change in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Region

JUST PUBLISHED! Ready for Climate Change? An Assessment of Measures Adopted by 45 Mediterranean Coastal Cities to Face Climate Change, with Xira Ruiz-Campillo and Cristina García Fernández (UCM)

Access recall to the chapter abstract here 

There is a need for a better and more holistic understanding of how climate change affects countries in the Mediterranean region and the Middle East on the one hand, but also on the many problems it faces on the other, which prevent adaptation efforts. There is also a perceived need to showcase successful examples of how to duly address and manage the many social, economic and political problems posed by climate change in these regions, in order to replicate and even upscale the successful approaches used. It is against this background that the just published #book Climate Change in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Regions has been produced. Editors Walter Leal Filho and Evangelos Manolas invited us to contribute with: An Assessment of Measures Adopted by 45 Mediterranean Coastal Cities to Face Climate Change, a collaborative work with professors Xira Ruiz, Cristina García Fernández and myself.

In an all impressive editing work of 527 pages, Walter Leal Filho and Evangelos Manolas address Climate Change in the Mediterranean Basin, including Thoughts for the Future (pag. 521). The book contains works prepared by scholars, practitioners and members of governmental agencies, undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects, and working across the region. It serves the purpose of showcasing some of the works in respect of #applied research, #field #projects and best practice to foster climate change #adaptation across the region. The book also showcases shortcomings that should be addressed. 

This book is structured in two main parts:

1) Climate Change Models and Impacts

2) Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Initiatives

Let me showcase some incredible works included on it 

Just cherry picking some (do check the index!):

- The chapter: Energy Impacts on Climate Change: Issues, Challenges

and Solutions with Clean Conversion Technology, written by @UttaraDas, @ChampaNandi, Somudeep Bhattacharjee, and Sarbani Mandal.

- The chapter: Development of a Water Security Index Incorporating Future Challenges, by @DenizMarangoz and Irem Daloglu Cetinkaya

The chapter: An Approach to Adapting Urban Drainage Design to Climate Change: Case of Northern Morocco, via @MohammedMoujahid, Laila STOUR, and Ali Agoumi

- The work: Enhancing Urban Microclimates Towards Climate-Resilient Cities: The Potential of Courtyards, via @CarmenGalán, @CarlosRivera, Jesús Lizana, @JorgeRoa, @EduardoDiz, and @VictoriaLópez

- The chapter: Sustainable Land Management for Rural Adaptation in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Watersheds, by @ItxasoRuiz and María José Sanz

- The chapter --so relevant!, Climate Change Impacts on North Africa: Public Health Perspectives, by @RehabRayan,@MohamedKamal, @ChristosTsagkaris, and @LoyleCampbell.

Access recall to the abstract of the chapters in the book  here

New global cities: Hong Kong

New global cities series: Hong Kong

Photo: Hong Kong, Olga Gil, 2019. All rights reserved. Todos los derechos reservados

DIRECCIONES EN NUESTRA INVESTIGACIÓN SOBRE IDEAS Y PODER: TECNOLOGIA, INTELIGENCIA ARTIFICIAL, SOSTENIBILIDAD Y CIUDADES, EN UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE

Para aquellos que están aceptando el reto de trabajar en temas relacionados con ideas, poder, tecnología y regulación, en los cursos sobre ideas y poder en la Universidad Complutense y en los trabajos fin de grado, fin de master y de doctorado, he preparado los siguientes recursos a los que tienen acceso completo a través de los enlaces. 

En este momento dirijo trabajos sobre...

• Participación política en democracias
• Regulacion de la tecnología y la inteligencia artificial en democracias y no democracias 
• Ideas y objetivos del milenio en las ciudades 
• Ideas y naturación de ciudades
• Ideas y políticas de sostenibilidad en ciudades del mediterráneo
• Tendencias filosóficas -y aplicadas- en la China actual
• Ideas y Madrid Nuevo Norte
• Ideas democráticas y los instrumentos de rating que influyen sobre la marcha política de las democracias

Insisto mucho en la aplicación práctica y profesional de los trabajos que los estudiantes realicen bajo mi dirección, no sólo en una buena teoría.

Estos son recursos básicos que voy actualizando de acuerdo con los intereses que me van indicando.

1. Informe de la consultora McKinsey sobre Inteligencia artificial: "Notes from the AI frontier, applying AI for social good" (52 pags) 
2. Pew Report sobre Artificial intelligence (+100 pags)
3. Digital strategy, the four fights you have to win, enlace (9 pags)
4. Africa´s overlooked business revolution, enlace (11 pags)
5. Visualizing the studies on smart cities in the past two decades: a two-dimensional perspective. M Li - Scientometrics, 2019 "Smart cities have become a very popular topic in transdisciplinary discourses and in academic research during the past decades, especially since 2013, and there has been rapid growth in the number of publications highly related to smart cities in Web..."
6. Towards Smart Sustainable Cities: A Review of the Role Digital Citizen Participation Could Play in Advancing Social Sustainability. I Bouzguenda, C Alalouch, N Fava - Sustainable Cities and Society, 2019 "Emphasizes that the role of ICT in the social sustainability of smart cities is particularly salient. • Explores … sustainability. • Expands our understanding on how ICT can contribute to the creation of more-than-human smart cities"
7. Developing Smart City: Based on the Assessment of Smart Projects in Medium-Size Cities, Vietnam. KHV Bach, SK Kim - American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering. 2019 "… the trend of smart city/urban construction will be inevitable [24]. To promote the construction and developing smart cities, in the framework of APEC …"

Ciudades, ideas y poder. El discurso sobre la inteligencia en las ciudades

Foro en el que he participado con expertos de todo el mundo, con la esponsorización de la Fundación para la Innovación Bankinter, y donde se han determinado posibles areas de trabajo presente y futuro en las ciudades

El libro de casos comparados de ciudades inteligentes, útil para los que compararán ciudades, que incluye un modelo teórico, un capítulo con foco en la participación ciudadana o su ausencia en los siguientes casos: Shangái, Iskandar, ciudades en Japón, Nueva York, Amsterdam, Málaga, Tarragona y Santander. Accesible y descargable en este enlace

Un artículo que compara plataformas de participación ciudadana en 13 ciudades o países, útil para los que compararán plataformas en ciudades, visible en este enlace.

Un artículo que versa sobre la participación ciudadana en las ciudades inteligentes y el nivel de engagement en las ciudades inteligentes, que puede ser útil para las comparativas que están haciendo de partidos en Italia y España, y que pueden descargar aquí. 

El informe ciudades disrruptivas de Fundación para la Innovación Bankinter, en el que ha colaborado, y que es descargable en este enlace.

El artículo que explica la nueva alianza de la Organización para las Naciones Unidas y de todas sus agencias con las ciudades, que puede copiar a su drive desde este enlace, y en la web de la Fundación, que cuenta con información adicional [enlace].

Muchas gracias por el interés en el debate teórico que subyace relacionado con el poder y las ideas políticas y los temas que tratan. Agradezco todas las sugerencias de posibles fuentes que podemos tener en cuenta en los comentarios a esta entrada de blog.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION AND COMPARATIVE PARTICIPATION FOR DOWNLOAD

I am pleased to share with you recent publications related to cities and more generally, democratic participation, 

• Citizen Participation and The Rise of Digital Media Platforms in Smart Governance and Smart Cities. 2019. International Journal for E-Planning Research.  Gil, O., Cortés-Cediel, M. E., Cantador, I. Abstract is enclosed below and you may access the full article as well through the UCM repository link. 

  
  
• For fans, I also recommend the Book ¿Como se gobernan las ciudades?, comparing over eight world city cases, including Shanghai, Iskandar, nine cities in Japan, New York, Amsterdam, Málaga, Tarragona and Santander. Download the full book here

At the moment with my team of researchers at UCM (TFGs, TFMs, PhD) we work in progress on:

1. The philosophical differences in participation in public administrtion in China and western countries
2. Political participation in democracies 
3. Ideas and the objectives of the Millenium
4. Ideas and the nature-based-city
5. Ideas and the grand design of Madrid Nuevo Norte neighborhood
6. Ideas and how financial ratings influence regimes, local, regional and national levels
   

Cities: XXX Future Trends Forum at Fundacion Bankinter

Cities is the focus of the XXX Future Trends Forum that Fundación para la Innovación Bankinter celebrates this year. The forum will allow to discuss about the many sides of technology and its relation with cities, and how this applies to the Spanish case. The discussions -l look forward to- will surely be very interesting.

These are some of the participants as for May 29th

Charles Bolden, Former Administrator of NASA. Bolden has overseen the safe transition from 30 years of space shuttle missions. USA

Kyle Corkum, Managing Partner and co-founder of LStar Ventures, leading development of the Union Point project — a 1,500 acre state-of-the-art smart city taking shape just outside Boston. USA

Antonio Damasio, David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy at USC and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute, USA

Natalia de Esteban, Consultant. Advisor to the European Commission on transport R&D and former Head of Innovation at Transport for London. UK

James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. USA

Gordon Feller, who led Cisco’s partnership with San Francisco and is the Founder of http://meetingoftheminds.org, focused on urban sustainability. USA

Olga Gil, Researcher in Smart Cities at University Complutense de Madrid. Spain

William Haseltine, a pioneer in DNA sequencing whose Foundation is developing models for distributed health care delivery. USA

Peter Hirhsberg, a Principal in the Maker City Project and Founder of the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. USA

Rick Jacobs,  CEO Accelerator for America. Accelerator’s mission to bridge the public and private sectors to connect people with fulfilling work. USA

Chris Johnson, Managing Principal at Gensler Middle East Region. An award-winning architect, he is the creative force behind a number of the firm’s landmark architectural and planning projects. UAE

Richard Kivel, Senior Manager: Bridgewater & Chairman Rhapsody Biologics. Focused on fast growth technology and healthcare related companies. USA

Philip Lader, Senior Adviser to Morgan Stanley. He is also a Senior Adviser to Palantir Technologies. USA

Emilio  Mendez, Director, Energy Sciences at Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA

Tan Chin Nam, Former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Manpower; Chairman, National Computer Board; and Managing Director, Economic Development Board, Singapore

Eden Shochat, Equal Partner at Aleph, Finder of Needles in Haystacks. He is a serial entrepreneur and technology specialist. Israel

Jens Schulte-Bockum, Chief Operating Officer, MTN Telecom Group, South Africa

Stephen Trachtenberg, President Emeritus, George Washington University, USA

Wilfried Vanhonacker, Visiting Professor of Marketing, Ex-dean, CEIBS. He is recognized as an accomplished scholar, academic entrepreneur, pedagogical innovator. China

Evan Wolff, a Partner at Crowell and Moring leading their Cybersecurity group. USA

John de Yonge, Insights Director at Ernst & Young’s think tank EYQ, focused on innovation ecologies in second tier cities. USA

Smart Citizens, Shaping Future Cities #FTFCities _ XXX Future Trends Forum, under the aegis of Fundación para la Innovación Bankinter

This year I have the pleasure to participate under the aegis of Fundación Bankinter, in the XXX Future Trends Forum, focused on cities. Three people, Marce, Chistopher, and Juan Luis  among others, have been able to put together an impressive team of talented people making path-breaking contributions on cities: “Smart Citizens, Shaping Future Cities” that will be held on May 30th-June 1st, 2018, in Sintra, Portugal.

What is Future Trends Forum?

"El Future Trends Forum es el único think tank multidisciplinar e internacional focalizado en innovación. Formado por más de 400 expertos, el Future Trends Forum anticipa y detecta las tendencias de innovación, analizando su impacto en la sociedad y modelos de negocio...Todo el contenido generado por cada tendencia se publica en nuestra página web, y es difundido a través de las conferencias celebradas por todo el país, con el principal objetivo de anticiparnos al futuro y potenciar la innovación en nuestra sociedad."

These people will be among those enlightening the conversation in this year session on cities as for March 17th:

Gordon Feller, who led Cisco’s partnership with San Francisco and is the Founder of http://meetingoftheminds.org, focused on urban sustainability. USA

Peter Hirsberg, a Principal in the Maker City Project and Founder of the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. USA

Evan Wolff, a Partner at Crowell and Moring leading their Cybersecurity group. USA

William Haseltine, a pioneer in DNA sequencing whose Foundation is developing models for distributed health care delivery. USA

John de Yonge, Insights Director at Ernst & Young’s think tank EYQ, focused on innovation ecologies in second tier cities. USA

Natalia de Esteban, Head of Innovation at Transport for London, UK

Olga Gil, Researcher in Smart Cities at University Complutense de Madrid. Spain

Antonio Damasio*, David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy at USC and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute, USA

Tan Chin Nam*, Former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Manpower; Chairman, National Computer Board; and Managing Director, Economic Development Board, Singapore

Jens Schulte-Bockham*, Chief Operating Officer, MTN Telecom Group, South Africa

Stephen Trachtenburg*, President Emeritus, George Washington University, USA

Charles Bolden*, Former Administrator of  NASA, USA

Previous to the elaboration programm we were able to hold a trasatlantic over-the-phone meeting where suggestions where shared regarding two questions: 1) experts and 2) general themes related to cities. I shared on this discussion and further messages my work on the regulation of data in cities and other levels of government at Facultad de Ciencias Políticas in Universidad Complutense. This work is concerned with power, ethics, governance, future trends and theoretical implications. I teach on this subject at UCM. Here you my find an intro.

This work crosses streams of research with other works carried out by members of the Smart Cities and Smart Government Research-Practice Consortium (SCSGRPC), of the Center for Technology in Government (University at Albany), directed by Theresa Pardo.

On the corporate side we will be able to learn and debate with people such as Mariola Pina, previous Head for Smart Cities at Hitachi, with actual expertise in Germany, Hawai, London, Manchester, and cities in Japan. I look forward to meet them all!

A presentation for the global Consortium on Smart Cities at CTG, Albany University

I have volunteered to present myself -applied research and projects- at the quarterly meeting of the Smart Cities and Smart Government Research-Practice Consortium (SCSGRPC), the Center for Technology in Government (University at Albany). This is happening on Thursday, Feb the 8th (at 17h Madrid time)- when 27 members of the consortium have been called upon for the quarterly meeting. We will be working online. 

VIDEO recorded with the first part of my intervention [6 minutes] will be available here soon.

Prof. Olga Gil working at the Office of the Rectors,
IEJRP Lisbon Congress, 2017

Meghan Cook and Theresa Pardo asked me what I have learned from these hectic last six years in my return to Academia, and the two years joining the Consortium. I have learned mainly four things:

First of all, the Consortium gives me a sense of purpose and focus on a long term strategy for my research which is interesting. 

Second of all, I have been proactive contacting members of the Consortium when I need to work collaboratively. 99% of the members I contacted show commitment and help. For instance, I prepared a proposal for EU applied research funding of 10 million euros in 2016-2017.  In drafting this proposal and preparing the international network, members of the consortium where of outmost help and interest. Here I want to thank specially to Gboyega Odjo, who devoted a lot of time to this endaveour, and I feel specially in debt to, and also to Albert Meijer and Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolivar. There were more pleople from the consortium joining in the tight last stages, or through members´ recommendation. I want to thank you all of you for your commitment and kind help!!! 

Thirdly, I have learned that for newcomers as prospective leaders, EU projects need coachers with experience as previous leaders. Thus, a professor with this expertise is a rare jewel we should indeed treasure.

And lastly, I have learned that going hand in had with a strong university, as opposed to a weak one do make a difference in terms of credibility when asking for a big part of the pie in funds.

Now, the work I am doing in 2018

I work at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, at the School of Political and Social Sciences. This is public university and a big one, and we have over 4.500 students just in the social and political sciences school alone. The school is particularly strong on administration, theories and  public policy.

I am working on the regulation of data in cities and other levels of government and power, ethics, governance and theoretical implications. I teach on this subject at UCM. Here is the access to the Open Course Ware (in progress).

On research, publishing and advising postgraduate research I will present five highlights: 

1.  I am publishing on platforms for the agregation of preferences in cities and countries in a comparative perspective. See one example in this PowerPoint:
2.  I am a member of CITADEL H2020 Empowering Citizens to Transform European PubLic Administrations. H2020 Framework Program (under GA 726755 with 3,6 million euro, running from 1/9/2016 to 1/9/2020) directed by Daniel Diaz-Fuentes, from the University of Cantabria. This is a joint project with the innovation Basque firm Tecnalia as general coordinator. 
3. I am further working on the analysis of platforms for e-participation together with a team of researchers in the informatics and mathematics school at UAM in Madrid. We focus on the analysis of data on platforms, and the use of recommender systems to make these platforms more useful to users. In particular, I study the governance and power implications of these platforms. These are recent works I am pleased to share with you: on e-governance, and on e-participation [enclosing this link soon].
4. I am also working with two posdoc and doctoral students, advising on their thesis. We are preparing work to publish on New Chinese Cities, with Zheng Tian-Cheng, and on Participation in Smart Cities, with Elicia Cortés.
5. From March 2016 to March 2017, I developed a join team to draft a proposal for the European Union H2020 Program. Even though I fail to get the 10 million funding from the Commission, I managed to unite 31 partners, including six cities European and two followers in Latin America (Cali) and China (Shangái). Together with the innovation firm Zabala, we presented a proposal entittled Co-Creating Green Node Networks in Neighborhoods for Urban Inclusion and Social Regeneration (SCC-02-2017). This proposal received a rating of 3.5 out of 5 from the European Commission evaluators. It has not been funded, but I have learned a lot through the process. This short proposal and comments from the EU evaluators are available for members of the consortium here if you are interested:

• Short proposal and 31 member list 
• Comments from evaluators 

Previously, I had I published the book that I wrote in English (unpublished in English yet),
"How Cities Are Governed? Smart Cities” [Free downdload: http://tinyurl.com/smartcitiesUCM] The book covers the smart city plans of over eight cities in three different continents: the comparative cases of Shanghai, Iskandar, Cities in Japan, New York, Amsterdam, Malaga, Santander and Tarragona.

This book is based on the theoretical framework advanced by members of the consortium in 2011 to study and analyze smart cities (Chourabi et al, 2011). Chourabi´s work has been widely cited in Spanish afterwards.

A member of my research team, Julio Navío, from UNED University, had an offer to publish it in Spanish at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where he had presented the English version. One of my postgraduate students, Maider Perez de Heredia, translated the English manuscript to Spanish. The work for this research was funded by Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación and Accenture.  Part of the funds raised by Prof. Olga Gil for this research went to finance the budgets of the Department of Political Sciences at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (5%) and to FUAM (20%). Gil was a professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid from  2012 to 2015.

These funds from the private sector paid for all the trips and registrations to scientific congresses in the last four years. Olga Gil is very thankful for that!

Presentación del libro El Análisis de la Política. 23 de Febrero, 12h., en Madrid

Comparto con vosotros las palabras que he preparado para presentar en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid el libro El Análisis de la Política, el jueves 23 de Febrero. Un libro editado por Mikel Barreda y Leticia Ruiz (Ed. Huygens, 561 pags). Soy autora del capítulo sobre el Análisis de las Políticas Públicas Comparadas.  Espero con interés la presentación, y, con suerte, saludaros. El debate y preguntas está abierto a todos aquellos que tienen interés pero no pueden asistir al acto el jueves23 de Febrero en Somosaguas a través de los comentarios a esta entrada de blog. Saludos virtuales a todos!

Donde: Facultad de Ciencias Políticas, Salón de Grados, Campus de Somosaguas
Universidad Complutense
Fecha: 23 FEB Hora: 12h.
Acceso al video de presentación en diferido haciendo click [enlace]

"Estamos ante el fin de los partidos como los conocemos tradicionalmente", 

afirma en el video Leticia Ruiz.

En la presentación tendré el gusto de acompañar a los coordinadores de la obra, Mikel Barreda y Leticia Ruiz, María Bustelo, en la actualidad Delegada del Rector de la UCM para la Igualdad de Genero, Irene Delgado, experta en política multinivel, y Emanuela Lombardo experta en políticas de género [@elombardo12]

Let us preparare for the new climate. Vicki Arroyo

Inviting comments for presentation on cities and government 3.0

This is an introduction to the Humanities Science and Technology Summer Course at Universidad Camilo José Cela, focusing on Government 3.0. It covers a Comparative Analysis of Tech Platforms in Cities and Governments at different continent settings and levels of development. It also shows the comparative and transdiciplinary research aimed at different schools in Universidad Camilo José Cela regarding smart cities and citizens. You are invited to dive into the following video and presentation, and to participate leaving your comments and suggestions for further work or changes.

Video: Tech Platforms of Opportunity for Cities and the Pleople

Presentation: Goverment 3.0

Government 3 0 from Olga Gil, PhD