Abstract

We live in an immensely interconnected world where communication and movement never stops. Our Cities are now bigger than ever and are still expanding. One of the key question that arises here is how could we make our Cities/Communities more sustainable, smarter and safer? In this talk we address this with the help of two projects; trash track and sustainable system and service design workshop.

Trash Track enables the tracking of trash and presents a scenario where 100 percent recycling is a possibility. It also makes happen the idea of “internet of things. “Nobody wonders where, each day, they carry their load of refuse. Outside the city, surely: but each year the city expands, and the street cleaners have to fall farther back. The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, and extend over a wider perimeter”. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.
 
The goal of Trash Track was to reveal the disposal process of our everyday objects and waste, as well as to highlight potential inefficiencies in today’s recycling and sanitation systems. Trash Track involved people from different neighborhoods of large American cities including Seattle and New York. A short deployment was also done in collaboration with BBC in London. Trash Track project later won the NSF visualization award and was covered in 100s of media. Trash Track project (http://senseable.mit.edu/trashtrack) was initiated and conducted at the SENSEable City Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston,USA.
 
The presentation also covers the outcomes of the workshops titled, “sustainable system service and design”. The workshops were conducted at the School of Design, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China and Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan. The outcomes include services that facilitate labor workers in finding jobs, social parties and car sharing.

About Dr. Musstanser Tinauli

Dr. Musstanser Tinauli is currently working as a freelance consultant in the area of sustainable, smarter and safer Cities. Another area of his interest and expertise is sustainable system service and design. He believes in changing the world through better education. He was awarded with prestigious titles of IBM PhD Fellowship and the Progetto Rocca Fellowship to conduct research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. He holds a PhD in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communications from Politecnico di Milano, Italy; a Masters by Research degree from Multimedia University, Malaysia and a Bachelors (CS) from Muhammad Ali Jinnah University, Malaysia.

As a young researcher he was also interviewed in one of the European Television programs titled, The Obama of the Future.  An exemplary highlight of his current career would be “Trash Track” project that he lead at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. The project enabled the tracking of trash to ensure a more sustainable behavior on Human’s end. It also makes the dream of the “internet of things” where every thing is addressable and traceable. One of his interviews with Discovery channel can be seen at (http://news.discovery.com/videos/tech-where-does-our-garbage-go.html). The project also stands out to be one of the most influential projects at MIT during the year 2009. He formed and lead a team of about 20 people including researchers, scientists, engineers, designers, artists and computer science professionals.
 
Dr. Tinauli has worked as an Assistant Professor at Al Qassim University, Saudi Arabia. He has also  been a research affiliate with University of Sydney, Australia, and the Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia, where he completed his graduate degree while serving as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Creative Multimedia. Musstanser has about ten international publications in conferences and journals. His works have been exhibited in exhibitions and museums.