Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday 15 December, 2022 launched the Senseable Lagos Lab, the first MIT Senseable City research facility in Africa at Isimi Lagos, Epe.
The initiative which is sponsored by Nigeria’s leading
residential real estate company, LandWey Investment Ltd, in partnership with
the team members of MIT Senseable City Lab and the Lagos State Government was
officially launched at the maiden edition of the Lagos Future City Week
organised by LandWey.
Speaking at the epoch-making ceremony, Governor Sanwo-Olu
who was represented by his Special Adviser on SDGs and Investment, Solape
Hammond, said: “I wholeheartedly commend Landwey Investment for attracting this
partnership. The Senseable Lagos Lab launch is a very exciting project for us
as it follows our climate adaptation and sustainable resilience plan for Lagos.
We have identified many projects which will help us address this including;
waste management, flood risk, green building and some other challenges. Thus,
it is exciting to see the fruition of this partnership as it would help us
address some if not all of these challenges.”
While commenting on what the partnership means for
education, Hammond said: “We have recently established the University of
Science and Technology which will focus on churning out those graduates who
will be providing solutions through science and technology. This makes it an
apt time to have this partnership as Lagos is well equipped with several
universities for the Senseable City Lab and Isimi Tech Valley to work with
across the state.” She remarked.
At the event, the Co-Founder and Director, MIT Senseable
City Labs, Carlo Ratti, walked the audience through the vision of the research
initiative focusing on some of the global solutions developed by the facility
through its meticulous research.
“We are elated about this partnership as it is our first
ever in Africa. Building sustainable cities around the world has helped us realize
the peculiarity of each city. Each one has its own distinct problem; to which
we use data to provide solutions. We are curious to possibly discover Lagos’
environmental challenges and equally excited to proffer solutions using data,”
Ratti noted.
With an overall goal of anticipating future trends, the
Senseable Lagos Lab will bring together researchers from many academic
disciplines to conduct real time work on groundbreaking ideas and innovative
real-world demonstrations in Lagos state. Work from MIT Senseable City Lab has
been exhibited in leading venues including the Venice Biennale, the Design
Museum Barcelona, the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Museum of Modern
Art (MoMA) in New York. Among many awards are TIME Magazine’s Best Invention of
the Year in 2007 (Digital water Pavilion) and 2014 (Copenhagen Wheel).
Committed to promoting the adoption of sustainable living in
Nigeria and by extension, Africa, the relationship between Isimi Tech Valley
and MIT Senseable City Lab hopes to provide data-led long-term solutions to the
ever-growing Megacity which will in turn encourage more investment.
For more information visit www.isimilagos.com or
www.futurecity.ng
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