Sanwo-Olu launches Senseable Lagos Lab

The Senseable Lagos Lab, the first MIT Senseable City research center in Africa, was officially opened by Lagos State Governor Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Thursday, December 15, 2022 in Isimi Lagos, Epe.

The initiative was formally unveiled at the inaugural Lagos Future City Week, which LandWey organized. It is sponsored by Nigeria's top residential real estate firm, LandWey Investment Ltd, in collaboration with the MIT Senseable City Lab team and the Lagos State Government.

Speaking at the epoch-making ceremony, Governor Sanwo-Olu who was represented by his Special Adviser on SDGs and Investment, Solape Hammond, said: “I wholeheartedly commend Landwey Investment for attracting this partnership.

We are really excited about the debut of the Senseable Lagos Lab since it fits with our aim for Lagos' sustainable resilience and climate adaptation. In order to solve this, we have identified a number of projects, including those that address waste management, flood risk, green building, and other issues. Therefore, it is fascinating to see how this relationship develops since it will enable us to address some, if not all, of these difficulties.

While commenting on what the partnership means for education, Hammond said: “We have recently established the University of Science and Technology which will focus on churning out those graduates who will be providing solutions through science and technology. This makes it an apt time to have this partnership as Lagos is well equipped with several universities for the Senseable City Lab and Isimi Tech Valley to work with across the state.” She remarked.

Carlo Ratti, co-founder and director of the MIT Senseable City Labs, presented the goal of the research project to the audience during the event, concentrating on some of the worldwide solutions the facility produced via its meticulous research.

“We are elated about this partnership as it is our first ever in Africa. Building sustainable cities around the world has helped us realize the peculiarity of each city. Each one has its own distinct problem; to which we use data to provide solutions. We are curious to possibly discover Lagos’ environmental challenges and equally excited to proffer solutions using data,” Ratti noted.

The Senseable Lagos Lab will bring together scholars from several academic fields to work in real-time on ground-breaking concepts and inventive real-world demonstrations in Lagos State with the main objective of anticipating future trends. The Venice Biennale, the Design Museum Barcelona, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York have all hosted exhibitions of MIT Senseable City Lab work. TIME Magazine's Best Invention of the Year in 2007 (Digital Water Pavilion) and 2014 are only two of numerous accolades (Copenhagen Wheel).

The partnership between Isimi Tech Valley and MIT Senseable City Lab, which is dedicated to encouraging the adoption of sustainable living in Nigeria and, by extension, Africa, aims to offer data-led, long-term solutions to the ever-growing Megacity, which will in turn inspire greater investment.

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