Save the Date: May 15 – 17, 2023
Data-Driven Urban Tech: How Machine Learning and Optimization Addresses Today’s Urban Challenges
Cornell Tech, New York City
This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to discuss challenges and recent advances in the field. Panels and presentations will showcase how machine learning, optimization and other algorithmic tools can make cities more equitable, efficient and sustainable
Technological innovations are creating opportunities for cities to rethink the way in which they address pressing and complex challenges. The most important of these challenges is mitigating and adapting to climate change, which has prompted researchers to design innovative prevention tools and disaster relief measures with the goal of making cities more robust. Second, the rise of the digital era, the algorithmic economy and innovations in the cyberspace have revolutionized our interaction with the city: from mobile apps that provide real-time information to help users’ decision-making (e.g., ride-hailing, bike-sharing systems, delivery systems) to smart infrastructure that aims to create a more sustainable ecosystem (e.g., energy efficient buildings, robust communication networks, smart grids). Recent technological advances have also impacted mobility, healthcare and, in general, public and private services. For instance, the adoption of autonomous vehicles, computer-assisted healthcare, analytics for water management, robust supply chains, among others. However, smart devices have also allowed us to access vast amounts of data that have exposed other layers of complexity and challenges such as protecting users’ privacy and security. Finally, the recent Covid pandemic and other societal changes have raised important questions about fairness and equity. In particular, the provision of services can be severely impacted by economic shocks, thus the allocation of scarce resources must account for underlying disparities. Other pressing challenges such as migration and the accelerated urbanization also have forced cities to design novel equitable solutions.
Speakers (confirmed to date):
Rachel Cummings (Columbia University)
Priya Donti (Cornell University)
Vanessa Frias-Martinez (University of Maryland)
Eugenia Giraudy (Meta)
Alexandre Jacquillat (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Neil Parikh (Columbia University)
Milind Tambe (Harvard University)
Angelique Taylor (Cornell University)
Pascal Van Hentenryck (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Organizing Committee:
Nikhil Garg– Asst. Professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech
Andrea Lodi–Andrew H and Ann R. Tisch Professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech
Michael Samuelian–Founding Director of the Cornell Tech Urban Tech Hub
Katya Scheinberg–Professor, Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell
Alfredo Torrico – Asst. Research Professor, Cornell’s Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society
More details on this workshop including registration information will be available soon.
This workshop is partially funded by a NSF TRIPODS+X grant to Institute for Data, Intelligent Systems, and Computation (I-DISC) at Lehigh University, hosted by Cornell Tech and co-sponsored by the Cornell Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society.