Keynote: Happy Maps, Daniele Quercia

Information technology
Keynote
Happy maps, Daniele Quercia
B1–C2
Discussion
1 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 How do you get to work or classes? Do you always take the same route? Do you always use the
same form of transport?
2 What might make you decide to take a different route, or use an alternative form of transport?
3 Do you ever use a mapping app for finding directions? When do you normally use it? Why?
Key words
2 Read this summary of Daniele Quercia’s TED Talk, Happy maps. Match the words and phrases
in bold with their definitions (1–10).
Daniele Quercia works in the field of computational social science. One day, after a month of
cycling the same route to work at the University of Cambridge in Boston, he took a detour and
was surprised to find himself in a tree-lined road with no cars. He was ashamed that up to that
day, in order to save a minute on his daily commute, and by following the definitive route
suggested by his mapping app, he had been missing the chance to connect with people and
nature.
This experience led him to change his research. He began conducting social science experiments
at scale using a web game to crowdsource the data. He asked players which urban scenes people
found more attractive. Based on thousands of votes, he was able to find out where consensus
emerged. He aggregated the results and came up with a whole new field of cartography that
could be weighted for human emotions rather than efficiency.
1 the business of making maps ____________________

2 connected with cities and towns and not the countryside ____________________
3 a different and possibly longer route to the one you usually take ____________________
4 giving more importance to one thing than others ____________________
5 agreement between many people ____________________
6 a person’s regular journey to and from work ____________________
7 get information or help from many people to develop something, usually using the Internet
____________________
8 the best version of something ____________________
9 at a particular size – larger or smaller – than the original ____________________
10 calculated the total ____________________
Page | 1
Happy maps
Comprehension
3 Watch Daniele Quercia’s talk on TED.com. Choose the correct option (a, b or c) to complete
these sentences.
1 After Daniele Quercia took a detour to work he felt _____ .

a surprised and emotional
b emotional and ashamed
c surprised and ashamed
2 Daniele Quercia says that normal mapping apps _____ .

a discourage people from exploring the city
b are often incorrect and need further development
c are great at encouraging people to explore the city
3 In the game, players compare photos of _____ .

a two scenes of the city
b two scenes of the countryside
c two photos of the same buildings
4 The results of his research _____ .

a showed why people are happiest in the countryside
b showed which city scenes people liked the best
c helped him create a new mapping app for Boston
5 At the time of his TED Talk, Daniele Quercia was _____ .

a doing a PhD in cartography
b a researcher and developer for Yahoo
c a small business entrepreneur
6 He wanted to make mapping apps based on _____ .

a nature, sound, smells and memories
b speed, efficiency, nature and music
c going through parks and meeting people
The big idea

4 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 In which ways does Daniele Quercia believe that his mapping app will enrich people’s everyday
journeys? How many of these are important to you personally?
2 Which four kinds of routes does his new London city map show? Which type would you prefer to
use to get to work?
3 Do you agree that taking the same route every day stops people fully experiencing a city? Why?
4 Who do you think might be interested in buying and using this kind of app?
5 Did his talk make you want to buy one of his apps? Why? / Why not?
Page | 2
Happy maps
Language focus – crowdsourcing for app development
5 Match the words to make expressions from the TED Talk.
1 computer science emotions
2 human mining
3 at (web) tools
4 data scale
5 crowdsourcing for
6 social science platform
7 team up experiments
8 weighted with
6 Complete this text with the expressions from Exercise 5. Then watch the TED Talk from
2.56−5.00 again and check your answers.
Quercia changed his research from traditional 1____________________ to understanding how
people experience cities. He used 2___________________ to replicate 3____________________
4
________ web __________ . He built a 5___________________ , a web game in which players
were shown pairs of urban scenes, and asked to choose which one was more beautiful, quiet and
happy. Then he 6____________________ Luca and Rossano, and together, they aggregated those
winning locations in London to build a new map of the city, a cartography which was
7
____________________ 8____________________.
7 Use the sentence beginnings to talk about your own work, or ongoing work that you know
about.
1 Our work is based on …
2 We recently teamed up with …
3 We use computer science / social science tools to …
4 We’re currently developing an app / programme for…
5 One result of the work we are doing is …
6 In the future, I see our work going more towards …
Speaking
8 Work in pairs. Read about five categories of crowdsourcing. Then answer the questions.
Cloud labour – This is when you get people to help you complete work, which may be difficult or
impossible to complete on your own because it takes a lot of time or is specialized work that you
cannot do well.
e.g. NASA uses cloud labour to help them organize and locate photos of space, for example.
Crowd creativity – Professionals are invited to participate in collaborative creative work such as
photography, advertising, video, design and marketing concepts.
e.g. Threadless invites designers to make designs for T-shirts and other clothing. Users vote for
their favourite designs each week.
Crowdfunding – This is a way of raising money for a project by asking investors for contributions.
They may receive nothing in return (donating to something they think is a good idea) or they may
receive something in return, such as a share of the profits or an example of the finished project.
e.g. JustGiving helps many people raise money for charity this way.
Distributed knowledge – People contribute their knowledge to build an information resource,
which is then shared online. There are many user-generated knowledge systems sharing news,
opinions, facts and expertise.
Page | 3
Happy maps
e.g. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that has been written almost entirely by volunteer
crowdsourced contributors.
Open innovation – Companies invite contributors, either members of the public or professionals,
to help them generate and develop new ideas.
e.g. The Audi car manufacturers organized a competition for people to imagine the car of the
future. They offered a cash prize and received lots of ideas in return.
1 Do you know of any more examples for each category? Describe them to your partner.
2 Crowdsourcing is not a new idea, but it has spread in popularity recently. Why is this?
3 What are the advantages and disadvantages of using crowdsourcing as a way of gathering
information, getting a job done or raising money?
4 Have you participated in any crowdsourcing projects? Which? Why?
9 Work in groups. You are developing a new app. Use steps 1–5 to help you create an initial
development plan.
1 Decide what type of app it is and how it could be useful.
2 Say who the target end-users are.
3 Decide what information you would need to know from potential end-users before you
develop it.
4 Consider which category or categories of crowdsourcing might be useful in the development
of the app.
5 Discuss how you could attract people to help you in this way.
10 Present your app and its development to the class.
Page | 4

Keynote: Happy Maps, Daniele Quercia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Keynote: Happy Maps, Daniele Quercia

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Keynote: Happy Maps, Daniele Quercia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Information technology

1 the business of making maps ____________________

1 After Daniele Quercia took a detour to work he felt _____ .

2 Daniele Quercia says that normal mapping apps _____ .

3 In the game, players compare photos of _____ .

4 The results of his research _____ .

5 At the time of his TED Talk, Daniele Quercia was _____ .

6 He wanted to make mapping apps based on _____ .

The big idea

10 Present your app and its development to the class.

You might also like