Mit-FBK alliance on Human Dynamics Observatories

How can we create organizations and governments that are cooperative, productive, and creative? These are the questions of social physics, and they are especially important right now, because of global competition, environmental challenges, and government failure. The engine that drives social physics is big data: the newly ubiquitous digital data that is becoming available about all aspects of human life. By using these data to build a predictive, computational theory of human behavior we can hope to engineer better social systems. MIT Connection Science (http://connection.mit.edu/ ) and Fondazione Bruno Kessler are launching an alliance and a joint research program to improve companies, cities and societies through a deep understanding of human behaviors and targeted interventions that leverage human connections.

Invited keynote speakerALEX "SANDY" PENTLAND 

8.30 Introduction Francesco Profumo, FBK President Paolo Traverso, Director Center for information and Communication Techonologies.

9.30 Keynote Alex Pentland, Director MIT Media Lab.

11.00 Coffee break.

11.30 Panel on data-driven health By combining fine-grained, ubiquitous monitoring of human behavior with standard medical data and genomic data, we are taking the first steps towards an holistic understanding of diseases processes. In this panel, experts on predictive medicine, epidemic modeling and computational health will discuss the impact of the data revolution for physical and mental health, the business impact on healthcare systems and insurance companies, and the privacy and ethical issues raised by managing health personal data.

12.30 Lunch.

14.30 Panel on data-driven finance Thought leaders from academia, bank industry, innovative fintech startups will discuss new data sources (e.g. social media, mobile phone data) for credit scoring of small-medium enterprises and underbanked individuals, the rise of digital currencies (Bitcoin, Sardex, etc.), and the potential of the technology underpinning digital currency - commonly called "the blockchain" - in revolutionising finance.

15.30 Coffee break.

16.00 Panel on data-driven cities and government Cities are essential crucibles for innovation, tolerance, novelty, and economic prosperity, but they also face challenges in terms of, for example, tra ffic, pollution, poverty, and criminality. In this panel, experts will discuss data-driven approaches to model human mobility, to predict crime and poverty levels of urban areas, and to design evidence-based policies to fight crime, reduce traffic and build liveable, sustainable and resilient cities.