Friday TED Talk: Sir Tim Berners-Lee; the year open data went global

Counting down the weeks till Danish urbanist Jan Gehl comes to London to present his film "The Human Scale" on designing cities for people , here at ibikelondon we're hosting a streets, people, bicycles and design-themed TED Talk every Friday.

We can't wait for January 23rd at the magnificent Hackney Empire Theatre (buy tickets here) but until then, here's the creator of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee to spice up your lunch hour learning...

What has the internet and open data got to do with cities, streets and cycling you might ask?  The age old adage "measure twice, cut once" still rings true today, nowhere more so than in the places where we live and share, especially with budgets so tight.  Once upon a time, roads might have been built speculatively, or bike lanes installed where it seemed a good idea, rather than when there was a real need.  We now live in a new age of "big data" where numbers can become the foundation of more successful solutions.  From a crowd-sourced map of bicycle crash sites put together by readers of The Times, to the borough of Hackney counting the amount of two-wheeled citizens using their bicycle-only roads, from knowing how many people ride to a station, and how much parking to provide for them (see Groningen) to discovering the most popular racing routes on Strava, what role will big data play for each of us in our collective future?

Jan Gehl will present "The Human Scale" at Hackney Empire Theatre on January 23rd 2014 - buy your tickets online now.

Share |