ABSTRACT | Is it possible to capture the socio-economic footprint of human behavior in our cities or neighborhoods? Nowadays, all human activities, ranging from the people we call, the places we visit, the things we eat and the products we buy, generates data. This can be analyzed over long periods to paint a comprehensive portrait of human behavior within the city boundaries. These geolocated digital traces, when combined with other information streams from national census, can be used to extract information about the potential needs and the routines in the collective behavior of different groups of citizens. We will analyze this data to understand the extent to which the urban activities of different population groups or communities are driven by both socio-economic differences and cities’ structure. This new quantitative approach can provide new insights for more inclusive policies to help future urban development.
BIO | Riccardo Di Clemente is a Newton International Fellow of the Royal Society at University College London (UCL) at the Centre for Advance Spatial Analysis, and consultant for the World Bank. He is a physicist by background (M.Sc. and B.Sc. Sapienza University of Rome). He received his Phd. Europaeus in Economics (at IMTLucca, Italy, visiting institution INET@Oxford) applying Complexity Science tools to Economics and Social system to extract strategy for policy making. Before being awarded the Newton International Fellowship, Riccardo had been a postdoc at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and previously at the Institute of Complex Systems in Rome. In his research, he collaborates actively with the World Bank, Sony CSL, Gates Foundation, United Nations, Data 2x, Institute of Public Policy UK, Cintra to develop new methodologies to study the human digital fingerprint, using Complex Systems, Network Theory, and Computer Science tools. For more information, please visit the website: www.riccardodiclemente.com.