05 Feb Prof Calzada’s Invited Professorship since 2020 at Mondragon University, Global Digital Humanities by Delivering Digital Rights & Digital Citizenship Module in February 2025

🚀 Bringing Global #AI-Driven #SmartCity Lessons to #Local #Communities? 🌍🏡

This week, while lecturing #GlobalDigitalHumanities #students in the #DigitalRights & #DigitalCitizenship module at Mondragon Unibertsitatea #Humanities #Faculty belonging to MONDRAGON Corporation, a fascinating #ActionResearch task emerged.

After examining international best-in-class examples of #AI deployment in #SmartCities, including #Dubai #Singapore #Barcelona #Tallinn #Copenhagen #Helsinki #WashingtonDC #Doha #Rotterdam #Muscat #Brisbane #Hangzhou #Delhi #Bangalore #Kolkata #Toronto #Berlin #Seoul #London and so on, a core question surfaced:

💡 Is it feasible, desirable, and even doable to roll out, scale down, or #replicate global smart city AI-driven innovations at the local level—municipalities, villages, towns, or neighborhoods?

Two #OpenAccess references on this topic:
1. About #PeopleCenteredSmartCities via #JournalOfUrbanTech #ImpactFactor 2.5 Taylor & Francis Group https://lnkd.in/d3gSU5Xr

2. About #Replicability #RollingOut #Policy #Deployment via #SmartCities #Journal #ImpactFactor 7.0 Smart Cities MDPI #Horizon2020 https://lnkd.in/gT7tjUR

Students reflected critically, drawing insights from Jane Jacobs’ perspective on local communities, as well as the #15MinuteCity concept, among others suggested by Carlos Moreno. We also explored case studies from the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights Joan Batlle Montserrat (PhD) Léa Lebon. Their collective agreement identified five key factors that determine whether global smart city innovations can be effectively localized:

1️⃣ Social Acceptance, Readiness & Digital Literacy – Are local communities socially prepared? Do they accept such transformation? Will they improve their wellbeing? Do they have necessary digital literacy/skills?

2️⃣ Material Preconditions – Are there structural, geographic, or logistical barriers preventing scalability?

3️⃣ Financial Constraints – Can small-scale communities afford the costs of AI-driven urban transformation?

4️⃣ Data Rights & Privacy – How do we ensure data governance, ownership, and protection of citizens’ digital rights?

5️⃣ Digital Inclusion & Equity – How can we prevent digital AI-driven urban strategies from excluding minority and vulnerable communities?

🔍 Any #evidencebased insights from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers:

📌 What challenges or opportunities have you encountered when attempting to scale AI-driven smart city innovations to smaller local contexts?
📌 What successful (or failed) case studies exist that can help inform this discussion?

Further #Reading #Citation #OpenAccess #OpenScience #Science4Policy:

Calzada, I. (2025, #forthcoming) Beyond the #Local–hashtag#Global Nexus: Towards #P2P Decentralized #AI-Driven #Diasporic #eCitizenship for #DataCooperatives. In Zuberogoitia, A. and Madinabeitia, M. UniberZiutatea/UniverCity. Reno: @Centre for Basque Studies – University of Nevada Press. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.19910.96326/1.

#Preprint:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5077929 via SSRN