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Engaging the City in Digital Worlds: Southern Smart Urbanisms and the Everyday

Photo of a woman on her phone, sitting by the shore

Please join us for Prof. Dr. Nancy Odendaal's Inaugural Lecture, taking place on October 21, 2025 at the Natural History Museum Basel.

The smart city discourse has been a dominant feature of city policies in the last twenty years. Academically the debates have centered around private sector interference in local governance, and the limitations of what is essentially a continuation of modernist planning. This reflection focuses on theoretical and expirical explorations of the ‘real smart city’ in Africa, and the interface between urban livelihoods, technology appropriation and the making of places. 

Please join us in person at the Natural History Museum Basel or via Zoom.

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