Thrust 4: Public Interest Technology

Examining the societal impacts of smart streetscapes and the processes by which trust is established and maintained within CS3’s testbed communities.

Project 1: Needs Assessment and Priority Mapping through Participatory Research

This project provides mechanisms for CS3 to surface knowledge about local conditions and identify needs and priorities directly through community stakeholders–from local youth in Harlem and West Palm Beach to representatives of local anchor institutions. This project creates several feedback loops between CS3 and testbed communities by involving community stakeholders in participatory research: Participants learn from and consult with CS3 researchers to generate insights about community needs and develop actionable insights to address local priorities. In turn, this dialogic format informs the strategic direction of the center and creates engagement opportunities to disseminate and share key findings with local communities.

My Streetscape Summer Research Institute

My Streetscape Summer Research Institute is an interdisciplinary workforce development program for high-school students in Harlem and West Palm Beach. Students are trained as community youth researchers and learn to create insights into the dynamics between social life and streetscape technology in their neighborhoods. This participatory format engages testbed communities through a bottom-up approach that centers local youth as knowledge co-contributors and bridges research, training, and public engagement. It enables CS3 to gain deep knowledge about local issues directly from residents and to respond to community priorities through research and technology development.

Pipeline for Community Consultation (PCC)

To support CS3’s growing community engagement in Harlem and West Palm Beach and collaborations with local entrepreneurs, start-ups, government agencies, and other key stakeholders, PCC fellows are selected from the My Streetscape Summer Research Institute and spend an academic year at the center. In this role, fellows continue to contribute their local expertise as community youth researchers at CS3, inform its various areas of activity, and participate in the intellectual life of the center.

Community Partners in Residence Program

The Community Partners in Residence Program (CPR) complements the My Streetscape and PCC programs by creating partnerships with key stakeholders in the neighborhood. It is designed to bring community representatives to CS3 who represent anchor institutions such as non-profits, city agencies, small businesses, and other local groups. The program provides a forum for these local leaders to surface concerns, needs, and priorities through their organizational networks and develop actionable insights to address these issues through technology development at the center.

Project 2: Analysis of Community Tradeoffs

Building on community input, this project studies how intended end users perceive and prioritize the benefits, risks, and threats around streetscape applications developed at CS3 to address community priorities, sensitivities, and needs. This research creates a framework to conceptualize technology tradeoffs (e.g., privacy, utility, or safety) to guide the subsequent co-design process. Project activities periodically assess these tradeoffs and involve different segments of the public through mixed methods (surveys for scale, intercept surveys for timeliness, interviews for depth, and focus groups to observe the dynamics of collective opinion formation.)

Assessments of Benefits and Downsides between Target Groups and the Community at Large

This activity supports work around the smart intersection application and studies how situational awareness and streetscape applications can be leveraged to make NYC crosswalks and smart intersections safer and more livable for community members with mobility impairments, particularly elderly residents. This requires not only studying mobility challenges for the target group (elderly residents) but also analyzing “collateral effects” on other segments of the public. This activity provides a framework to understand better how engineers can weigh the relative benefits and downsides of smart intersections (and other technologies) as they identify, select, and work with specific end-user groups.

Studying Differential Tradeoff Assessments between End Users and Professional Intermediaries

Professional organizations often act as gatekeepers granting or restricting access to streetscape applications. They also define technology tradeoffs differently than end users. Research into organizational mediation is critical to understanding how engineers at CS3 can develop wayfinding applications that are aligned with the priorities of end users but also secure critical buy-in from professional intermediaries. This activity analyzes particularly how wayfinding technology (StreetNav) is mediated by BLV organizations in NYC. This project contributes to the co-design activities of Project 4.3. and the development of StreetNav and provides actionable insights to engage technology-mediating organizations across all CS3 projects.

Community Sentiments Around Anomaly Detection

This project studies the tradeoffs between privacy, utility, and safety of anomaly detection via computer vision in WPB (see Mobility Intelligence Platform application). The project systematizes, catalogs, and analyzes existing data in WPB gathered through intercept surveys, focus groups, and conversations at the CRA to provide insights into stakeholder sentiments. It also further expands this research through systematic and targeted data gathering via surveys, interviews, and community conversations. This activity considerably broadens current views of what role streetscape technology can play in modern cities, such as helping local government recognize illegal street dumping.

Project 3: Community Co-Production and Co-Design

Developing streetscape applications requires a co-design process that can elicit trust. To achieve this goal, this project develops insights and co-design sequences around specific applications to ensure that participating stakeholders represent the diversity of testbed communities; to build a robust mechanism sensitive to duration, frequency, and timing for meaningful inclusion in co-design; and to remedy “inclusion friction” (technology slow-downs and obstructions). Project activities will be designed to foster equal exchange in the co-design process and create resilient relationships between CS3 researchers and testbed communities. This project will leverage these co-design principles and integrate them across relevant projects at CS3.

Methods, Protocols, and Measures Toward the Development of a Unified Public Engagement Methodology

Siloed academic research can lead to applications that overlook societal needs. This activity fosters co-design across research thrusts through deep listening and information-sharing between social scientists and engineers. This activity will identify and unpack common assumptions that engineers hold about public engagement and misconceptions that engineers encounter in interactions with non-academic stakeholders. Findings from this research will inform the development of a unified public engagement methodology (PEM) for integration across the center.

Co-Design for the Responsible Design, Development, and Deployment of AI in Harlem’s Streetscapes (ReDDDoT)

Associated Project - ReDDDoT

The rise of generative AI has the potential to transform urban life. However, because AI is often perceived as a “black box,” deployment can lead to mistrust. At the center of this project is the creation of a new “Citizen AI,” a collaboration between voices, experiences, and forms of expertise. Through co-design workshops and fellowships, community members and researchers will co-develop project milestones and activities. Participants will produce a needs assessment report, stakeholder surveys, and community events.

Recent Publications

Researchers

Jennifer Laird

Deputy Director for Inclusive Education

Thrust 4: Public Interest Technology

Project 1: Needs Assessment and Priority Mapping through Participatory Research

Project 2: Analysis of Community Tradeoffs

Project 3: Community Co-Production and Co-Design

Recent Publications

Researchers

Jennifer Laird

Gil Eyal

Jorge Ortiz

Anthony Vanky

Brittany N. Fox-Williams

Gillian Bayne

Brian Smith

Cristian Capotescu

Trainees

August G. Smith

Emily Portalatín-Méndez

Jenny Fondren

Nicole Lum

Alumni

Brady Kennedy

Miguel Beltran

Raquel Edith Padilla Garcia