Christian van ’t Hof is a senior researcher at the Rathenau Institute, the Dutch office of Technology Assessment. With his background in sociology and electrical engineering, he analyses the relation between human and electronic networks. His research involves RFID, digital skills, network convergence, geodata, virtual communities and robotics, while he compares European and South East Asian perspectives on their developments. Aside from his research he also presents scientific talk shows.

Christian van ‘t Hof is also presents a Keynote lecture.

project description ‘Picture this, Google Earth Live!’

What if data coming from mobiles, payment systems, camera’s and navigational devices are plotted live on a digital map? What kind of applications would you build if you were government, business or consumer organisation?

During this session participants will receive a brief explanation of the possibilities of GPS, RFID, GSM and other technologies used in the public space and how these technologies could provide live data on the Google Earth platform.

Participants will develop their own application for users to navigate through the public space. These applications serve to start a debate on the societal aspects of smart environments: privacy, identity, empowerment and control. Van ‘t Hof held this design session at several ministries, companies, conferences and citizengroups in the Netherlands and will provide also present some of the outcomes from these sessions.