POSE: Phase I: Building an Open-Source Ecosystem (OSE) for Legible Urban Tech - Digital Trust for Places and Routines

This Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) project address the critical need for transparency in the use of smart city technologies. These technologies, from security cameras to traffic sensors, increasingly govern public spaces, yet operate invisibly, leaving residents uncertain about data collection and use. This opacity undermines public trust in the use of these technology innovations. This project develops the open-source ecosystem for Digital Trust for Places and Routines (DTPR), a visual standard that makes smart city technologies comprehensible through easily readable icons and consistent information structures. Unlike existing technical standards developed for engineers, DTPR enables all stakeholders to co-create a common language for public-realm technology. Where implemented, DTPR has demonstrably increased resident trust and fostered meaningful dialogue about technology use. By developing DTPR’s ecosystem, the project creates a sustainable ecosystem for more transparent and accountable public space technology innovation. The project will benefit residents, governments, and industries who will gain tools that foster trust and enable participation in the use of smart city technologies. As cities worldwide face similar transparency challenges, this research helps establish frameworks for ethical smart city innovation and responsible technology governance.

This POSE project addresses the need to develop a sustainable open-source ecosystem that supports and expands DTPR and enables collaboration between public, governmental, academic, and private sector stakeholders. As artificial intelligence (AI) innovation increases development and deployment of technology in public spaces, DTPR serves as critical infrastructure, catalyzing stakeholders to co-create accountability frameworks for urban AI systems. The project leverages human-centered and participatory research methods through three integrated workstreams: 1) ecosystem discovery, 2) organization and governance development, and 3) community development. Ecosystem discovery employs systematic desk research and user interviews to map current and potential stakeholders, identifying community needs, challenges, and collaboration opportunities while developing technical roadmaps. Organization and governance development brings together practitioners in structured workshops to establish decision-making procedures, change adoption protocols, and community management frameworks. Community development enhances the user experience through improved asynchronous documentation, remote training workshops, and regional community leadership positions. The technical results include a comprehensive stakeholder ecosystem map, established governance procedures, enhanced documentation and training resources, technology road mapping, and planning for improved continuous integration and delivery. This systematic approach to open-source ecosystem development generates reproducible methodologies for creating participatory standards in public technology domains.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Award Number: 2449431
Principal Investigator: Georgia Bullen
Funds Obligated: $319,993
State: NY