Digital X
Norman Foster Foundation Public Debates 2019 In association with e-flux Architecture
2 
Digital X
Norman Foster Foundation Public Debates 2019 In association with e-flux Architecture
Digital X | Introduction
Said in telegraphese: all things digital are simultaneously local and global, large and small, inside and outside of any given boundary. The digital world is not crisp. It is porous and diffuse. It brings together previously separate worlds, like those of discovery, invention and expression. It does that because it has become the DNA of each. The natural world and the artificial world are becoming the same. Change will happen very rapidly. Fasten your seatbelts. With that as background, the workshop is designed to pose an outrageous question and come up with some real inventions. The question is: can you build a city without infrastructure: no roads, no sewers, no water or power? Why bother? The answer is to renovate slums without bulldozing them, which is something that could impact two or three billion people. Call it a new autonomy, that of a house or a small community, taking some pages from outer space and bringing them back to earth. Participants will be asked to park reality at the door. Bring your most advanced thinking, craziest ideas, whether they relate to architecture or not, and let’s apply them, their derivatives or simply your point of view to the needs of the world’s poorest people, especially the increasing number who live in slums.
Nicholas Negroponte Trustee Norman Foster Foundation
Public Debates
Speakers
Nicholas Negroponte, Co-founder and former Director of MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, United States
Amber Case, Co-founder of CyborgCamp, Cambridge, MA, United States
W. Daniel Hillis, Co-founder of Thinking Machines Corporation and of Applied Invention, Cambridge, MA, United States
Mary Lou Jepsen, Founder of Openwater, San Francisco, CA, United States
Hasier Larrea, Founder and CEO of Ori Inc., Cambridge, MA, United States
David Moinina Sengeh, Chief Innovation Officer at the Government of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone
Ben Vickers, Chief Technology Officer at the Serpentine Gallery, London, United Kingdom Chair of the Public Debates Tim Stonor, Managing Director of Space Syntax, London, United Kingdom
4 
Schedule Tuesday 19th February
12:30 p.m.
Digital X Public Debates Lecture hall, Fundación Francisco Giner de los Ríos
Introduction by Nicholas Negroponte Keynote by Mary Lou Jepsen Keynote by David Moinina Sengeh
Debate between Nicholas Negroponte, Mary Lou Jepsen and David Moinina Sengeh, moderated by Tim Stonor
Questions-and-answers session
Keynote by W. Daniel Hillis Keynote by Amber Case Keynote by Ben Vickers
Debate between W. Daniel Hillis, Amber Case and Ben Vickers, moderated by Tim Stonor Questions-and-answers session
5
Participants
© Daniel Root
Amber Case Amber Case studies the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way cultures think, act, and understand their worlds. Case is currently a research fellow at the Institute for the Future. She spent two years at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and MIT’s Center for Civic Media. Case is the author of Calm Technology: Designing for Billions of Devices and the Internet of Things. She spoke about the future of the interface for SXSW 2012 keynote address, and her TED talk, ‘We are all cyborgs now’, has been viewed over a million times. Named one of National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers, she’s been listed among Inc. Magazine’s Forbes 30 under 30 and featured among Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology. She was the co-founder and former CEO of Geoloqi, a location-based software company acquired by Esri in 2012. In 2008, Case founded CyborgCamp, an unconference on the future of humans and computers. W. Daniel Hillis W. Daniel Hillis is an American inventor, entrepreneur, scientist, writer, and visionary who is particularly known for his work in computer science. He is best known as the founder of Thinking Machines, the pioneering parallel supercomputer manufacturer. More recently, Hillis cofounded Applied Minds, the technology R&D think tank. Hillis is the co-founder of Applied Invention, an interdisciplinary group of engineers, scientists and artists that develops technology solutions in partnership with leading companies and entrepreneurs. Currently, he is visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab, Judge Widney Professor of engineering and medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), and adjunct professor of engineering at USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He holds hundreds of U.S. patents, and is the designer of a 10,000-year mechanical clock. Hillis is a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the
6
Mary Lou Jepsen Technical executive and inventor in the fields of display, imaging, and computer hardware, Jepsen is the founder of Openwater, a start-up working on fMRI-type imaging of the body using holographic, infrared techniques. In 2016, she joined the board of Lear Corporation, a Detroit-area maker of seats and electronics for cars. She was previously an executive at Facebook / Oculus VR where she led a concerted effort to bring virtual reality to the next level. Previously, she was a project leader at Google X. Jepsen founded Pixel Qi in Taipei, Taiwan, focused on innovative optoelectronic architectures and the manufacturer thereof. She was the co-founder and first chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC). She has been a professor at MIT Media Lab and is an inventor on over a hundred published or issued patents in the last five years alone. In 2008, she was named to the Time 100, and in 2013 she was named to CNN’s top ten thinkers in science and technology.
Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte is the co-founder (with Jerome B. Wiesner) of the MIT Media Lab (1985), which he directed for its first twenty years. He gave the first TED talk in 1984, and has given thirteen more since. In 2005 he founded the non-profit One Laptop per Child, which deployed one billion dollars of laptops for primary education in the developing world. In the private sector, Negroponte has served on the board of directors of Motorola and was general partner in a venture capital firm specialising in digital technologies. He has provided start-up funds for more than forty companies, including Zagat and Wired magazine.
7
David Moinina Sengeh David Moinina Sengeh is the chief innovation officer for the government of Sierra Leone. Dr Sengeh heads the directorate of science, technology and innovation and serves as an adviser to the president. Prior to his appointment, he was a research scientist and manager at IBM Research Africa where he led a healthcare team for implementing AI-enabled systems for treatment and management of diseases in Africa. Sengeh is the co-founder of the international youth learning NGO Global Minimum Inc. (GMin) where he was president of the board for ten years. He was born and raised in Sierra Leone and attended the Red Cross Nordic United World College in Norway before earning his bachelor degree in Biomedical Engineering at Harvard College and his PhD at the MIT Media Lab. David Sengeh has won several awards and international honours including fellowships at TED, Obama Foundation and the Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Student Prize.
Ben Vickers Vickers is a curator, writer, explorer, publisher, technologist and luddite. He is CTO at the Serpentine Galleries in London, co-founder of Ignota Books and an initiator of the open-source monastic order unMonastery.
8 
Tim Stonor Chair of the Public Debates Tim Stonor is an architect and urban planner who has devoted his career to the analysis and design of human behaviour patterns—the ways in which people move, interact and transact in buildings and urban places. He is an internationally recognised expert in the design of spatial layouts and, in particular, the role of space in the generation of social, economic and environmental value. Tim is the managing director of Space Syntax, a company created at the Bartlett, University College London (UCL), in 1989, to develop and apply predictive design technologies. He is a member of the Board of Directors at the Academy of Urbanism, London, visiting professor at the Bartlett, UCL, Harvard Loeb Fellow and deputy chair of the United Kingdom Design Council. Stonor joined the Advisory Board of the Norman Foster Foundation in 2018.
 9
Credits
Editorial partner
Collaborating institutions and entities American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon American University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Ashesi University, Berekuso, Ghana Cape Town University, Cape Town, South Africa Cambridge University, Cambridge, United Kingdom Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands Fundación Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Madrid, Spain George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, United States The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Except where otherwise noted, text and photographs © Norman Foster Foundation Norman Foster Foundation Monte Esquinza 48 28010 Madrid Spain T +34 91 219 15 47 www.normanfosterfoundation.org info@normanfosterfoundation.org
Follow us: @normanfosterfdn #NormanFosterFoundation
 11
12