Location

MIT Media Lab, E14-633

Description

Can you imagine a city that feels, understands, and cares? Many of us live and work in an urban environment, however we often are not aware of how hugely our behavior is influenced by the environment. Future cities will alter human behavior in countless ways and Socially Influencing Systems (SIS) will play an important role in making urban spaces more livable and resource-efficient by addressing current environmental problems and enabling healthier routines. This talk will focus on discussing ways for reshaping our current environments and designing future "persuasive cities" to help people become healthier and to acquire sustainable lifestyles. As one of the examples, this talk will provide insights into a recently conducted, large-scale study called Biking Tourney. For six weeks, it engaged 239 employees of 14 organizations from the Greater Boston area, including Google, Miller Dyer Spears, Volpe, iRobot, Boston Children’s Hospital, FastCAP Systems, Cazena, and others. Altogether, the tourney participants rode 29,374 miles on their daily return trips to work.

Biography

Dr. Agnis Stibe is a social engineer at the MIT Media Lab. Agnis envisions future persuasive cities that encourage healthy and sustainable routines. His research is built upon socio-psychological theories to design Socially Influencing Systems (SIS) for health behavior change at scale. Agnis is an active member of the persuasive technology community, frequently speaking at annual conferences and effectively collaborating with industry. Over more than 20 years, Agnis has gained professional experience in sales and marketing of IT services and products, development of interactive web solutions, and customer relationship management. He has worked for a number of multinational IT companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and First Data International. In the course of his career, Agnis has twice been awarded a recognition from the Minister of Education and Science of Latvia for his long-term creative work. Agnis holds a master’s degree in computer science, an MBA, and a PhD on Socially Influencing Systems (SIS). More: cp.media.mit.edu/agnis-stibe

Host/Chair: Rosalind W. Picard