Live at the Goethe-Institut, Hanoi and at the Deutsches Haus, Ho Chi Minh City
Registration at 6:30 p.m.
Start at 7 p.m.
Online via Zoom
Start at 6:45 p.m.
Zoom-Link to the discussion
‘The politics of urban digital infrastructures’
Already more than half of the world’s population lives in cities – and this number is growing. Modern cities depend largely on invisible infrastructures that usually only become noticeable when they cease functioning. Similarly, the internet is also a material infrastructure, although it is often portrayed as immaterial. The much-hyped ‘Smart Cities’ promise to digitise the urban merging of these two infrastructural layers. But what happens when they fail? Can cities be smart – and should they be in the first place? What are the interests and values embodied in these infrastructures? How do we make sure that cities in the digital society remain public spaces? How can they be designed to foster social benefits and not just commercial interests?
Stephen Graham
© Stephen Graham
is Professor of Cities and Society at Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. He has an interdisciplinary background linking human geography, urbanism and the sociology of technology. Since the early 1990s Prof. Graham has used this foundation to develop critical perspectives addressing how cities are being transformed through remarkable changes in infrastructure, mobility, digital media, surveillance, security, militarism and verticality. His books include Telecommunications and the City (with Simon Marvin), Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructures Fail and Vertical: The City From Satellites to Bunkers. Prof Graham’s 2011 book Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism was nominated for the Orwell Prize in political writing and was the Guardian’s book of the week.
Dr. Truong Minh Huy Vu
© Truong Minh Huy Vu
is currently serving as Director of Information Technology Park (ITP), Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City. Previously, Dr. Vu was Deputy Director of Department of External Relations and Project Development VNU-HCM (2019). From 2015 to 2018, he was the inaugural Director of Center for International Studies (SCIS) and Vice Dean as well as Head of International Political Department of Faculty of International Relations, University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Ho Chi Minh City. Dr. Vu has also been a senior fellow of The Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) since 2018. He received his PhD in Political Economy from University of Bonn, Germany (magna cum laude) in 2014 with full scholarship from Germany's Federal Foreign Ministry. Dr. Vu's publications have been featured in scholarly journals and policy discussion papers including The National Interest, The Asan Forum, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, Global Asia, East Asia Policy, The German Journal on Contemporary Asia, The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative and RSIS Commentaries. He is a co-editor for the edited volume of "Power Politics in Asia’s Contested Waters Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea" published by Springer in 2016. Apart from his academic engagement, Dr. Vu has also involved in policy consultation in various international organizations such as World Bank, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), UNDP in Vietnam, German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and governmental agencies in central and provincial levels in different provinces in Vietnam.
Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Thị Thái Lan
© Nguyễn Thị Thái Lan
is the lecturer of Social Work, Faculty of Sociology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Hanoi, Vietnam.
From 2014 to 2016, Ass.Prof.Dr. Lan was the lecturer at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Labour and Social Affairs, Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam and had previously worked at College of Labour and Social Affairs, Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam. In 2009, she was appointed to be the general secretary of the National Committee on development of core Social work curricular.
She gained her B.A. in English, Hanoi University of Foreign Language Education (1994), a Master of Social Work from the University of Regina, Canada (2004), and a PhD in Social Work from the University of New South Wales, Sydney (2015).
Her teaching and research fields include social welfare rights and social work profession; human behaviour and social environment, social work theories and models, social work with groups, social work administration; competency - based social work ethics training curriculum, services for children with autism.
Some of her research projects are Implementing the people' welfare rights through social work professionalization (2020); Multi-country review of the social service workforce in the East Asia and Pacific region: Vietnamese case (2018).
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