PIA have been running monthly hour-long PlanTech briefings to keep planners up to date on how technology can be used to deliver better planning and development outcomes.
This online talk series has been carefully curated to bring you relevant insights from an array of local and international experts at the forefront of digital planning practice. From the uses of artificial intelligence in planning, to combatting fake news in community engagement, this series is designed to bring you up to date on how digital technology is set to shape the future of our profession.
AI and Planning
EVENT RECORDING
Interest in AI has exploded in recent months with the release of platforms such as ChatGPT providing mainstream access to powerful content-generation capabilities. In this talk Tom will share insights from his recent work on AI in Planning done in collaboration with the American Planning Association. In this not to be missed session Tom will show how AI tools have much to offer planners, improve the planning profession's existing practices and ways of thinking, ultimately offering better ways to create sustainable, equitable, and resilient communities.
Rules as Code - Digitalising Development Assessment
EVENT RECORDING
Automating parts of the planning approvals process is no longer a far-fetched dream but a subject of serious consideration for planning authorities. “Rules as Code” underpins many of these innovations, an approach used to create and publish planning policies and development codes in a digital-friendly format which can then be used to build digital services. This technology has far-reaching implications for the way planners will go about their day-to-day work and we have invited Nadia Webster, an expert in digital government, to bring us up to speed on the topic. In this session Nadia will share insights from her experience leading rules as code projects in the New Zealand Government and more recently, her work with planners in Wellington City Council to develop the pilot “Resource Consent Check”. Not to be missed, this briefing will equip attendees with knowledge and practical advice to start thinking about how to apply Rules as Code approaches in your own organisation.
Scenario Planning Tools: Launch of the What If? Collaborative Scenario Planning System
EVENT RECORDING
In the face of unprecedented uncertainty brought about by COVID-19 and climate change, urban planners are facing increasingly complex challenges. Improvements to computing technologies mean that digital scenario planning tools are becoming increasingly valuable for navigating this uncertainty and developing strategies for the future. We have invited Professor Chris Pettit, one of the world’s leading researchers on scenario planning tools, to deliver a briefing on this topic. In this talk Chris will also introduce the "What If?" online tool, which is being launched as part of the Australian Housing Data Analytics Platform. Freely accessible, the What If? planning support system (PSS) is a collaborative planning tool designed to allow strategic planners to experiment with planning scenarios. In a user-friendly fashion, the tool allows planners to explore the implications of population growth and other socio-economic factors on the future of Australian cities. The talk will include a live demonstration of the software, showing how it can be used to inform decision-making and support more resilient and sustainable urban planning.
Free and Open Source Digital Planning Tools
EVENT RECORDING
As the number of digital planning tools continues to grow, it can feel overwhelming to navigate and identify the most effective tools for our work. To help us we have invited Winston Yap to deliver a briefing about his recent comprehensive review of free and open source planning tools. In his review, Winston documented 70 open source tools that support different stages of the urban planning process, as well as an additional 54 peripheral tools for related domains. In this talk, Winston will give us a crash course on the functionality of freely available tools and how they can add value to the planning process. We will also learn about ongoing efforts to build an open source global urban network tool at the National University of Singapore.
The Role and Potential Risk of Bots in Participatory Planning
EVENT RECORDING
The explosive growth in the technological prowess of social bots has taken the world by storm. As ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing force us to reimagine the writing process and notions of creativity and originality writ large, an equally powerful storm is brewing in the domain of urban studies. The physical, In Real Life (IRL) places where we live, work, and play are threatened by this artificial intelligence societal turn. In a pre-Internet, pre-1996 world, AI couldn’t hurt cities. But urban planning today is wired directly into the web and the full range of engagement, information, and participation processes that modern local governments employ in shaping the form and appearances of places depend on online interactions. The presence of bots now represents a dire challenge as community meetings, surveys, online serious games, and discussion forum are being overrun by bots that are being programmed to disrupt urban development processes.
The top UrbanTech advancements impacting planners in the coming years
EVENT RECORDING
Don’t look now, but UrbanTech change is on the horizon, and the change is going to offer the planning profession new opportunity like we are seeing with the PlanTech agenda.
But like many advancements in digital and data solutions brought to the market, there are opportunities to be gained when planners are intimately engaged, but equally undesirable impact if not well understood. And for some issues like wireless digital connectivity, the ability for planners to influence outcomes is changing substantially.
In this PlanTech webinar we unpack some critical issues relating to digital connectivity, technology deployment and public realm stewardship.
What might the roll out of 5G millimetre wave technology look like for our cities? As Australia transitions to a shared infrastructure model for mobile networks, how can planners become more engaged in planning for this connectivity? And as the public realm becomes home to more and more technology, and data gathering increases, how do we build trust with the community?
Lets discuss…
Digital Privacy and PlanTech
EVENT RECORDING
We all know we need to care about protecting privacy. We also all want to ensure we respect ethical and legal obligations when it comes to the use of emerging technologies like AI... But where do we start? Where does the data go? What even are our obligations as public servants and business owners?
These have been common questions raised in PIA PlanTech briefings, and so, we have invited Tim de Sousa, an expert in information governance and emerging technologies, to present this briefing and Q&A session.
Tim will talk about foundational concepts of privacy, how privacy laws in Australia will be changing in 2024, and the impacts of new technologies such as sensor embedded infrastructure, AI and machine learning on the planning industry.
This session is recommended for anyone looking to implement emerging technologies into their practice.
Improving Engagement through Online Participatory Mapping
EVENT RECORDING
Prioritising our communities is essential in digital planning. Participatory online mapping (also known as public participation GIS or PPGIS) is an increasingly popular method to ensure community voices are heard in planning processes, but one that is still new to many planners in Australia.
Professor Marketta Kyttä from Aalto University in Finland is one of the world’s leading experts on public participation GIS. Her research work spans hundreds of real-world case studies and she has made significant contributions to PPGIS methodologies used worldwide. We are therefore delighted that she has accepted our invitation to deliver our final PlanTech briefing for 2023 to tell us about the best ways to use PPGIS to improve participation and planning outcomes.
This will be a Wednesday late afternoon briefing to accommodate time differences between Finland and Australia.