EdX

Smart Cities (edX)

Offered by University of Canterbury, UCx,

Explore how New Zealand is using technology and data to design sustainable smart cities. The Smart Cities course charts a journey across New Zealand to understand how smart cities are shaping up from Christchurch in the South to the capital city Wellington all the way to Hamilton in the North. You’ll learn from real live smart city projects such as LED lighting, solar powered waste management solutions and more allowing you to better comprehend how New Zealand is paving new paths to harness technology to create social change.

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You will analyse the role of various stakeholders in the ecosystem and examine some of the governance challenges. Finally, you will relate to developments in NZ by examining your own city context. Your interactions with other participants will have you contributing, debating, sharing and drawing insights from your city.

What you'll learn

Understand how local City Councils in New Zealand are organising around the concept of ‘smart’ cities.
Analyse the role of stakeholders in development of smart cities
Examine governance challenges in smart cities
Critique the evolution of smart societies.
Articulate how Cities are tackling community challenges in smart cities
Assess the relevance of global smart city practices to local context

Syllabus

Module 1: New Zealand and Smart cities
You will understand how the concept of smart cities continues to evolve, understand the role of technology and data, and get introduced to smart cities in New Zealand from the lens of the City Councils driving these programs.

Module 2: Smart cities and community
You will examine how the smart cities program across NZ aids in tackling community challenges and the collaborative role played by stakeholders.

Module 3: Smart cities and wicked problems
How do smart cities in NZ address wicked problems such as climate change and natural disasters? This module will help you examine these aspects.

Module 4: Governing smart societies
This module will help you evaluate the role of the different stakeholders in governing smart societies.

Module 5: NZ smart cities and the world
In this module, you will learn how New Zealand Smart Cities’ initiatives are benchmarked against other Cities in the world and you can contrast it with your City.

Module 6: My city, my role
Take the knowledge that you have gained through the course and transform it into action plan that makes a difference.

Go to Class

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