Welcome to the new MOOC, getting smart about cycling futures. In this MOOC, we hope to make you smarter about what cycling and what cycling futures entails. To get us started, I want to share an anecdote from the 1960s. 1969, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, one of the Beatles, they got married and they went on a honeymoon. And during their honeymoon, they also visited Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, they were staying at the Hilton Hotel and they had a lot of people visiting them in their honeymoon suite. At the time they were protesting by staying in bed for seven days, protesting for world peace, and many of the visitors brought all kinds of gifts to their hotel. One of the viral images of that moment was a picture where we see John Lennon and Yoko Ono in bed with a white bicycle. A rickety old Dutch Opafiets, a bicycle sitting upright position, one speed and back pedal brake, and it was lying on their bed. I often wonder, why did the people bring this bicycle there? You could see it as one of the key innovations of the time because that white painted bicycle was actually one of the first bike-sharing systems. The white bicycle in Amsterdam represented the idea that bicycles when painted white, could be used by everybody without having locks. The first-generation of bike-sharing systems. But I strongly believe that the reason why they brought this bicycle to John Lennon and Yoko Ono didn't have a lot to do with the fact that it was the newest innovation to make the mobility system more efficient. Actually, I think that the bicycle represented a symbol of a very different past, present and cycling future, where the bicycle stood for a different reasoning compared to the actual capitalist idea of cities and societies being machines that had to function efficiently. So people were celebrating love, life and the bicycle was an important symbol for that. During the different weeks, we will cover all kinds of innovations in terms of great bikes, great cycling infrastructure, and great cycling cities. Throughout the weeks, we will reflect with you on those innovations, what the innovations mean for cities and society and we will help you to ask better questions about them. We should ask more questions because the innovations around cycling are not value neutral. They can create all kinds of different futures that we should be aware of. Much of the work that's represented throughout the weeks of this MOOC is actually based on a four-year research project we did in the Netherlands, which was called smart cycling futures. In smart cycling futures, we did a lot of living labs in which we tested all kinds of smart cycling innovations. The project was run by four universities, University of Amsterdam, University of Utrecht, the Technical University of Eindhoven, and the University of Applied Science Windesheim. We worked together with the city of Amsterdam, the region of Amsterdam, the city of Utrecht, the city of Eindhoven and the city of Zwolle. And throughout the living labs, we studied all these different cycling innovations and we can bring that knowledge to this MOOC, but especially, we learned to reflect and to think about what these innovations would mean for different cycling futures. In Week 1, we will talk about the different imaginations that we can have about cycling futures. Basically asking the question, why was the bicycle in bed, with John Lennon and Yoko Ono? and what kind of futures can we envision if we think about cycling now? In Week 2, we're going to expand our thinking about bicycle innovations in relation to the larger mobility system. Why do we want bicycle innovations, for instance, to attract people from the car to the bicycle and are we not forgetting the people that are already on the bicycle and how does the bicycle relate to other modes? For instance, the combination of bicycles and trains. In the third week we will discuss, great bicycles, innovations that make the bicycle smarter, better, faster, cheaper, more comfortable. We will discuss how all these innovations actually shape our thinking about the future. We will also meet one of the companies that is thinking about those innovations. Week 4, will be about great bicycle infrastructure. In this week, we will talk more about how the infrastructure itself is reshaped all the time throughout the Netherlands and the world. What kind of new spaces are being created in which the bicycle is going to perform in the future. Week 5, is then going to discuss bicycle futures for all. For whom are these innovations working and for whom are they not? and what does that mean also, for our thinking about the direction we take with smart cycling futures, all these weeks will set you up to in the final week, think for yourself about what type of cycling futures exists. What kind of Utopias can you now imagine? What kind of dystopias can you imagine? You will run a final assignment where we will ask you to help all of us think about smart cycling futures. Enjoy.
