Smart Communities and the Role of Citizen Engagement

Tuesday 12 October, 9am-11am 

Join us for this virtual event that takes a look at Cork as a smart and sustainable region. We showcase innovative and collaborative projects that are currently underway and explore how citizen engagement has played a key role in fostering positive change at a social, economic, and environmental level. 

Come and discover exciting projects in Cork that are creating a bridge between researchers, policy makers and the community for more a sustainable and inclusive future:

• Smart Wellbeing project: ‘Wellbeing sensing, social applications of ICT’ (Professor Dirk Pesch, UCC School of Computer Science & IT);
• Smart Mobility project ‘Crowd4Access’ (Brendan Smith, EPE from Insight Centre);
• Smart Environment. Project: ‘Biophilic cities: Google Street View imagery and AI measuring urban greenspace and its impact on health and socioeconomics’ (Dr. Marguerite Nyhan, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering, Project PI, The Nyhan Future Sustainability Research Group at UCC);
• Smart Society. Project: ‘Cork City North-West Regeneration Evaluation Research’ (Dr. Siobhan O’Sullivan and Professor Cathal O’Connell, UCC School of Applied Social Studies).

Together with and for Community

Cork Smart Gateway is an initiative established by Cork’s local authorities (Cork City and Cork County Council) and Academia partners from UCC, Tyndall National Institute & MTU. Additionally, Industry partners such as Energy Cork, it@Cork and the Cork Chamber of Commerce also contribute to the Cork Smart Gateway activities. Cork Smart Gateway is a UNIC CityLabs partner.

UNIC CityLabs: The UNIC European University is an alliance of eight universities educating through teaching, research and community engagement, towards inclusive societies. Central to this, is the collaborative work of UNIC CityLabs to create physical and virtual meeting points where students, citizens, academia and city stakeholders work together to identify and solve societal challenges faced by post-industrial superdiverse cities. During Community Week staff, students and city representatives from across the eight European partner cities convene in Liege for the inaugural CityLabs Festival. 

Our UNIC CityLabs Programme Strand highlights events and activities taking place in Cork and Liege during Community Week that are connected to the exciting collaborations taking place in Cork and across European through the UNIC CityLabs intiative. 

UCC Community Week: This event is part of UCC Community Week 2021. During Community Week, staff and students across the university come together with community and public sector partners to host community focussed events and activities. The week long programme of events celebrates UCC as a civically engaged university.