Explore how
low-cost low-energy IoT
can help provide insight and prevent
bike theft in Amsterdam

The Challenge

The Context

Crime has major influences in urban life, from migration and mobility patterns, to housing prices and neighbourhood liveability. However, urban crime studies still largely rely on static data reported by the various institutions and organisations dedicated to urban safety. 

In this hackathon, we explore how the use of digital technologies enables the fine-grained analysis of specific crimes over time and space. The case is the issue of bike theft in Amsterdam—a city with a dominant cycling culture, where reportedly more than 80,000 bikes are stolen every year. Recently, a study by MIT and AMS Institute researchers used active location tracking to unveil where stolen bikes travel to and what their temporal patterns are. 

In this hackathon, the goal is to extract information from the data and create products or ideas about how the City of Amsterdam can reduce bike thefts.

The Challenge

Stakeholders 

• City of Amsterdam (Bike theft policy advisors);
• Police of Amsterdam;
• Insurance companies;
• Bike producers;
• Cyclists.

Deliverables 

• Presentation & pitch;
• Product ideas;
• Scripts written for data analysis & visualisation.

Resources 

• Tracking stolen bikes in Amsterdam (Venverloo et. al., 2023)
• MIT Senseable Lab Bike Tracking Project
• MIT News article

Team Formation

It's been proven that best innovations were created by the diverse teams. That's why, for this hackathon we are bringing together students from AMS Institute, Codam and Amsterdamse Hogeschool van Kunst to co-create solutions together.

One hackathon team =
2 Codam students +
2 AMS Institute students +
2 AHK students.

Team's Formation Process:

1. Find a partner within your school with whom you'd like to create a pair-team;
2. Fill in the registration form for yourself and your comrade BEFORE June 9, 23:42;
3. Match with other student pairs and form a full team DURING the first 2-hour of the hackathon.

The Partners

The Partners

The MIT Senseable City Laboratory is a digital laboratory within MIT's City Design and Development group within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, which works in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. The lab aims to investigate and anticipate how digital technologies are changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale.

Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) is an internationally leading institute located in Amsterdam. The mission of AMS Institute is to develop a deep understanding of the city to design solutions for its challenges and integrate these into the city of Amsterdam. In this institute science, education, government, business partners and societal organisations are working tightly together to create solutions addressing the complex metropolitan challenges a region like Amsterdam is facing. AMS Institute is a collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wageningen University & Research, Delft University of Technology, the City of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) trains students for the national and international world of art, culture and heritage. AHK consists of six academies: The Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Netherlands Film Academy, Academy of Theatre and Dance, Reinwardt Academy, Academy of Architecture and Breitner Academy.

Codam Coding College is a peer-to-peer software engineering institution with a world-class curriculum empowering the next leading generation of tech talent. At Codam, students build technical expertise and grow adaptability, autonomy, and empathy, in close collaboration with private and public partners.