Shaping resilient cities through cognitive computing technology

Future Resilient Systems is bringing the application of cognitive computing technology for resilient cities and approaches to tackle the urban heat to Understanding Risk (UR) Asia. The two-day hybrid conference features wide-ranging themes, with a focus on the creation and use of risk information for decision-making.

The resilience of modern societies encompasses both infrastructure and social resilience, making social and cognitive factors essential attributes of a resilient city. With enhanced sense-making and cognitive capabilities at both the organisational and community levels, a city in distress would be better able to prevent disruptions, mitigate the effects, respond to the challenges and recover.

In ‘Enhancing resilience of smart cities through cognitive computing technology’, panellists will discuss how integrating cognitive computing technology and cognitive engineering approaches in planning could improve the quality and speed of decision-making for more resilient cities.

We will present examples such as using cognition-aware human computer interaction in control rooms to enhance cognitive resilience and detecting weak signals in social networks. A specific example is the integration of social media with machine learning and natural language processing techniques, which could reveal public opinion towards government policies. The feedback obtained are important inputs for policy adjustment ,so as to achieve improved social resilience.

The session is moderated by Dr Jonas Joerin, Co-Director of the Future Resilient Systems (FRS) programme at the Singapore-ETH Centre.

Panellists:

• Dr Majeed KHADER, Director of Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre and Senior Consultant Psychologist at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore
• Prof. Martin RAUBAL, Principal Investigator at FRS and Professor of Geoinformation Engineering at ETH Zurich
• external page Prof. Kezhi MAO, Principal Investigator at FR and Associate Professor of School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University Singapore

FRS at the Singapore-ETH Centre is a content partner of the conference organised by the World Bank, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, and the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk. It is contributing to another session on the topic of Urban Heat.