Episode 71 - Science and The City: From Urban Theory to Mobile Apps with Tassos Noulas

We hear from Tassos Noulas, faculty fellow at the NYU Center for Data Science about Urban Data Science and the related theory and projects. In the age of big data, scientists have found a better understanding of how cities develop, how to improve transport networks, and some ideas for future products that can be built around taxis and AR.

Topics include the Future Cities Challenge, Taxi price comparison apps, retail gravitation, central place theory, the relationship with fractal geometry, and wiki atlas.

About Tassos Noulas

Tassos Noulas is currently an assistant professor and faculty fellow at the NYU Center for Data Science where I caught up with him last week. He has been very active in the academic Data Science Community over the last decade, authoring dozens of well-cited papers, teaching courses, and organizing conferences. He received his PHD in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge.

Linkedin: Anastasios Noulas
Twitter: Tas Noulas
Google Scholar: Anastasios Noulas

Relevant Links

The Future Cities Challenge - a project in conjunction with Foursquare to use Data to Improve Cities
Wiki Atlas - a project to embed wikipedia into a world map, with an eye towards an augmented reality experience for city walking.
Introduction to Urban Data Science - Tassos’ Summer course at Ukraine Catholic University this Summer
2017 Article on Open Street Cab
NYU Center For Data Science Website

2015 Workshop on Urban Data Science
Max’s Talk at the Workshop: Places and Tastes: Understanding Where People are and What They Do There

wikimapia.org - a long-standing wiki-based mapping site
stickymap.com - my senior project at Yale, another open point-of-interest wiki mapping site

Di Fara Pizza (also on Foursquare)

Related Episodes

Episode 66 with Dennis Crowley on Future Augmented Reality Applications for Cities
Episode 60 on the Evolution of Data Science
Episode 49 with Daniele Quercia on his work in Urban Data Science
Episode 35 where I highlighted Foursquare for Good, related to the Future Cities Challenge
Episode 31 on Causality
Episode 26 with Chris Messing on Augmented Reality Application for Retail