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Digital Planet: Smart Citizen Pack

Factual: Science & Nature

Guillem Camprodon from Fab Lab Barcelona

01/04/2014

Smart Citizen Pack

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Smart Citizen Pack

Technology packs that put citizens, not government, in charge of monitoring environments

The technology packs putting citizens in charge of monitoring environments; New Zealand’s WikiHouses; Feature films made with smartphones; Norwegian schools and technology

Smart Citizens packs have been unveiled in Manchester in the North of England. The packs provide citizens with the technological tools that will enable them to monitor their own environments. Tomas Diez explains how the kits are giving power to the people.

WikiHouses
WikiHouse is an online, open-source construction kit that lets people design and build a house from scratch in a few days. You download a pattern, cut out the parts in plywood and start building – that is the plan being worked on in Christchurch, New Zealand, a city that was devastated by a series of earthquakes in 2010. It is early days for the global WikiHouse movement but two local designers have started business to make the WikiHouse a reality. Simon Morton met Danny Squires and Martin Luff in Christchurch.

Smartphone Film
A report on the world’s first ever feature film shot entirely on an iPhone. The man behind the project is the cinematographer, Ricky Fosheim. But can a smartphone film ever be as satisfactory as a 16mm or 35 mm film?  How can such images, received onto such a small device, ever be transmitted onto the big screen. Click investigates.

School Report in Norway
Pupils from Burntwood School in the UK have recently visited Sandvika High School on the outskirts of Oslo in Norway, where they have dispensed with their textbooks. Pupils now use Facebook, Twitter and blogs to present their work. The teenage School Reporters discover how Norway is leading the way in its use of technology in class rooms.

(Photo: Guillem Camprodon from Fab Lab Barcelona ©photo taken by Bill Thompson at the Future Everything Festival in Manchester)

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