As people acquire more digital tools, cities need to be redesigned. So says Olga Kordas who, with SEK 1 billion in her pocket, is leading Sweden's largest project to create smart and sustainable cities.
Imagine that digital technology can make it possible to sit around a table with your colleagues, while you are actually at home on your living room sofa. All that's needed is a more modern form of our existing VR glasses, and then imagine, when this technology becomes a reality, how it would affect something as obvious as morning traffic. If everyone can travel in cyberspace, why should we move physically? And is it right to build new roads in a city where more people could work from home? Olga Kordas is a researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) and project manager for the innovation program Smart and Sustainable Cities, which receives SEK 40 million a year for 12 years from the Swedish Energy Agency, Vinnova and Formas. An equal amount is provided by other stakeholders. The goal of the program is to use digitalization as the main tool to make Sweden a pioneer in sustainable urban planning.By: Malin Isaksson, Dagens Industri.
