By Lee Green IBM VP of Brand Experience and Strategic Design

The history of measurement may seem arcane, but consider how people centuries ago measured time, length, or the Earth’s rotation. Compare that to measuring atoms with a scanning tunneling microscope — and all the historic milestones in between.

Today IBM is releasing a free, interactive app, IBM THINK Exhibit, for iPad and Android tablets. It shows how early tools have evolved into modern advances that make the world word work better — healthier populations, greener energy and safer, less congested cities. The app is for people of all ages who love science, history and technology — think of it as an “innovation time machine.”

A page from the IBM THINK Exhibit app that traces the history of metal detectors to President James Garfield.

Through thousands of images and historical anecdotes, IBM THINK Exhibit app brings to life stories of the history of progress, from space exploration to weather prediction and medical advances. It documents the roots of Big Data, from early charts and scales to microscopes and telescopes, from RFID chips and biomedical sensors in clothing to breath-sensor diabetes detectors.

The app shows how maps have been used to track data from early geographical charts to today’s data visualizations. It chronicles how “models” have been used to understand the complex behaviors of our world – from the Wright Brothers’ plane prototype in 1903, to today’s airline mechanical parts simulations. Given its strong educational bent, the app will even be used to create lesson plans for middle school students later this year.

It also includes a 10-minute HD film about tech innovation, edited from footage shot on location in China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Turkey and the U.S. with a new camera rig that captures imagery simultaneously on three video cameras.

The app is inspired by IBM’s 2011 THINK pop-up exhibit at New York’s Lincoln Center, developed for the company’s Centennial. Visitors were immersed in a film and interactive experience across 40 oversized digital screens. IBM’s exhibit was just placed in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection and has received many design awards. Later this year, the THINK Exhibit will be installed in its original form at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center in Orlando, Fla.

This is IBM’s second tablet app this year for tech history buffs. Minds of Modern Mathematics reinvents the massive timeline of the history of math from 1000 AD to 1960 that was part of Mathematica: A World of Numbers…and Beyond, IBM’s 1964 World’s Fair exhibit designed by Charles and Ray Eames. The app offers biographies, milestones and images of artifacts culled from the Mathematica exhibit as well as a high-resolution image of the original timeline poster.

To download the IBM THINK Exhibit app:

For iPad: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibm-think/id546222093?mt=8

For Android tablets: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ibm.thinkapp

For a Flickr set of images:  http://bit.ly/MWNpVq

Join the conversation on Twitter #STEM

Technorati Tags: android, apple, Eames, Google, History, IBM, ipad, Math, Science, STEM, technology, THINK

This is the second part of a series on building a smarter city.

By Peter Kusterer, IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, Germany

As part of the Smarter Cities Challenge in Dortmund, the Mayor asked IBM to help create recommendations on how to transform the steel and coal industry and train workers for  jobs in a 21st century economy.  The team of IBMers created six recommendations based on this challenge:

• Brand image. The city should develop a unifying vision for Dortmund, and use it as a beacon for progress. The process should be an inclusive one that engages the diversity of the community to shape this common view. While this sounds pretty straightforward and some might feel this is not something new, it must not be confused with creating a new logo, driving an image campaign or some other rather superficial activity. It is about understanding, surfacing and forging the “personality” of the city – something which cannot be delegated to some agency but is at the heart of the city’s development. It is the answer to the question “Who is Dortmund?”

• Champions and local heroes. The city claims many internationally recognized figures who, as “champions,” can help promote Dortmund to the world. Within the city, they are to be complemented by Dortmunders who lead outstanding organizations or programs and can serve as “local heroes” to inspire others. This should not be randomly appointed to well-known people, rather it relates the brand image back to the talent focus and therefore is instrumental to developing and attracting talent.

• Talent framework. A shared, holistic view of talent – a framework – helps individuals explore their own talent, helps the community achieve an integrated view of talent and orchestrates the programs that support talent development. From their findings, the team suspected that somewhere, someone in Dortmund had a program to meet every need. But in order to connect to each other, to understand differences and identity gaps for action, all stakeholders need to have a common language when identifying, fostering, promoting, and developing talents throughout the city.

• Social collaboration. A structure is needed to connect programs and people with the goal of fostering innovation, sharing best practices and leveraging resources. While the talent framework helps to orchestrate programs and initiatives toward a common movement, networking across organizational boundaries is key for innovation, as well as for developing and maintaining momentum. This also cannot be left to coincidence – it needs active management.

• Program office. The city should expand on the current foundation by clarifying roles and responsibilities and examining opportunities to align with other initiatives to better leverage city resources. The  office put in charge last October needs to be more profoundly anchored in the city in order to succeed in delivering towards the common goal of talent development.

• Portfolio management. A management system is needed to understand the performance of programs across the framework and aid investment decisions based on results across programs. Resources are scarce and therefore there must be a mechanism in place to invest and disinvest into programs based on facts drawn from the talent framework execution rather than anecdotal evidence of single, non-connected activities.

In other words, the future of the city depends largely on instrumenting (talent framework) the issue, interconnecting (champions and local heroes, social collaboration) activities and stakeholders across all constituencies, to provide for intelligent (project office, portfolio management) approaches for talent. Technology will facilitate and ameliorate results across all above recommendations throughout Dortmund’s journey becoming a Smarter City. Linked to a unifying vision embodied by a strengthened brand image, and incorporating tolerance, Dortmunders will enjoy a promising future and spread the word and their talent way beyond today’s city boundaries.

Technorati Tags: Dortmund, Germany, IBM, Smarter Cities Challenge

Mit dem Frühlingserwachen in unseren Städten haben wir mit Konstantin Papanikolaou (^kp) einen weiteren Kollegen an Board unseres kleinen Smarter Planet Social Media Experiments genommen. Er ist unser Smarter Cities Experte und wird verstärkt eben dieses Thema beleuchten.
Herzlich Willkommen ;)

Jetzt sind Sie gefragt:

Der Smarter Cities Scan: Wie können Städte - Ihre Heimatstadt - smarter werden?

Die Mission: Vordenker städtischer Innovationen, IBMer und Menschen aus allen Regionen der Welt zusammenzubringen, um Ideen über Smarter Cities auszutauschen und weiter zu entwickeln.

Die Plattform: Die innovative, einfache und schnell wachsende Tumblr Plattform, Heimat der Smarter Planet | Tumblr Seite und der Ein Smarter Planet | Tumblr Seite unterstützt das Smarter Planet Blogwird in die Smarter Planet Webseite auf ibm.com übernommen.

Das Ziel: Die Teilnehmer werden gemeinsam ein Smart Cities Open Model erschaffen. Mit Hilfe von IBM Data Mining Expertise und Software werden die Multimediabeiträge aller Teilnehmer analysiert. Das resultierende Blueprint wird anschließend Städten und gesellschaftlichen Initiativen als Grundlage für Projekte zur Verfügung gestellt, die unsere städtischen Zentren smarter machen sollen.

Neue Intelligenz aus Analyse
Die Zielsetzung des Programms unterstreicht die Mission der neuen Business Analytics & Optimization Beratungsdienstleistungen der IBM: Neue Intelligenz aus der Analyse von tief greifenden und unterschiedlichen Daten, welche Unternehmen und komplexe Organisationen wie Städte nutzen können, um erfolgreich und effizienter zu funktionieren.
Die kreativen Ergebnisse werden auch in die Arbeit unserer Business Analytics Center rund um die Welt in Berlin, Tokyo, Peking, New York, London und Washington, D.C. einfließen.

Wie funktioniert der Smarter Cities Scan
Gehen Sie auf http://smartercities.tumblr.com(EN) und klicken Sie auf “Post Your Ideas” um beizutragen. Beiträge können Bilder, Videos, Link, Zitate, Text oder Kombinationen davon sein. Alternativ können Sie Ihren Beitrag auch per email - natürlich auch per Handy - an smarterplanet@tumblr.com senden.

Social Energy Meter [SEM] (via WideTag)

Wieder ein schönes Beispiel für die Verknüpfung von Sensor Networks und Social Web… In dem Beispiel wird Energiesparen zum spielerischen Wettbewerb in Echtzeit.

Sieht auch gleich noch attraktiver als eine Digitale Anzeige aus :-)

In dem Video wird die Notwendigkeit für mehr Transparenz in der Nahrungsmittel Lieferkette beschrieben. Das Vertrauen in die Sicherheit unserer Nahrung ist vermutlich nicht nur in USA in den letzten Jahren gesunken…

Zahlenmaterial findet sich auch im Blog:
Cultivating a smarter food value chain | A Smarter Planet

smarterplanet:

Tumblr operates on two different levels at once: On one, Tumblr is an elegant and easy-to-use blogging platform that lets users create web pages far more attractively and quickly than something like Wordpress or Drupal. On the second level, Tumblr has a culture of reblogging (via Tumblr Raises Money, Touts “Really Sexy” Plus Accounts)

Abu Dhabi has established its leadership position by launching the Masdar Initiative.The Masdar Initiative driven by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), is a global cooperative platform for the open engagement in the search for solutions to some of mankind’s most pressing issues: energy security, climate change and the development of human expertise in sustainability.

Part of the initiative is quite some technology research on the use of power, transportation as well as various pilot programs.