A short introduction to smart and integrated infrastructures as an asset for prosperity in Africa: energy, digital and mobility infrastructures - the lifeblood, nerve and skeleton of modern societies.
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Course description
The course is part of a series of Sprint MOOC addressing the Next production Revolution (NPR) paradigma, as new wave of technological innovation.
It addresses people from anywhere in the world, from industrialized economies as well as from “developing countries” and particularly from Africa.
This specific course describes enabling infrastructures for the Next Production Revolution.
New infrastructure development cannot retrace old paradigms that are inappropriate from a variety of perspectives including environmental, social and economic sustainability.
In this course, you will learn to recognize how smart and integrated infrastructure can support the introduction of the Next Production Revolution while ensuring a sustainable path.
The focus will be on digital and green infrastructures that have been recognized as the most effective to achieve sustainable development goals.
The course addresses emerging digital infrastructure including communication networks and technical requirements for NPR applications.
Furthermore, it focuses on green infrastructures including the field of energy with distributed renewable energy power sources and the transport sector with greener solutions in both transportation of people and goods.
After taking this Sprint MOOC you’ll be able to understand how smart and integrated infrastructure can boost the Next Production Revolution by creating a network of things, services, data and people.
This series of Sprint MOOC is one of the main results of the EMERGING AFRICAN INNOVATION LEADERS Program (G7 exchange & empowerment program for enabling innovation within the next production revolution).
Prerequisites
No formal knowledge is required.
Discussion forum
Forum section is available. The Forum is designed to allow students to exchange opinions and discuss open questions.
Quizzes and scores
The course is organized into different weeks and modules. At the end of each week, you will find a self-evaluation quiz specifically created to help you check the status of your learning progress.
The course will be considered as completed if you obtain at least 60% of the Total Score. You can monitor your gained points at any time on the Progress page.
Certificate of Accomplishment
The Certificate of Accomplishment will be released to anyone who successfully completed the course by answering correctly to at least 60% of the questions by the end of the edition. You will be able to download the Certificate of Accomplishment directly on the website.
The Certificate of Accomplishment does not confer any academic credit, grade or degree.
FAQ
For further information, see FAQ page.
Course Faculty
Stefano Arrigoni, Politecnico di Milano
Stefano Arrigon is a postdoctoral researcher In the department of mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Milano.
He received the M.S. degree in mechanical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in applied mechanics both from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2013 and 2017, respectively.
His research interests lie in the area of autonomous vehicles with a focus on trajectory planning, ADAS design and V2V communication.
Emanuela Colombo, Politecnico di Milano
Emanuela Colombo is Full Professor in Engineering for Cooperation and Development and Advanced Thermodynamics and Thermoeconomics at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano,
where since 2005 she has also been serving as the Rector’s Delegate to the themes of Cooperation and Development.
In 2012 she was named Chair holder of the UNESCO CHAIR in Energy for Sustainable Development and she is the current representative of the Italian academic system
within the “National Council for Cooperation and Development”, appointed by the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI).
Roberto Gaudino, Politecnico di Torino
Roberto Gaudino is Full Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Italy and Coordinator PhotoNext, the reference Center on Photonics@POLITO.
His researches are in optical fiber networks, focusing on the current fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) revolution in fixed access (OPTCOM).
He is author of more than 250 papers and 6 patents.
From 2009 to 2016 he was the coordinator of three EU projects in optical access (EU FP6-IST “POF-ALL” and "POF-PLUS" and EU FP7-ICT “FABULOUS”).
Pierluigi Leone, Politecnico di Torino
Pierluigi Leone is Associate Professor at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Torino in Italy where he teaches “Sustainable Energy”,
“Thermal Design and Optimization”, “Global Energy Trends and Outlook”. He is coordinator of the Massive Open Online Course – MOOC –
“The strange paradox of the world energy question”. He was TEDx speaker at the Innovation Ecosystems TEDx conference of Torino, on October,
2016.
He is coordinator of the Task Force “Energy and Development” of Politecnico di Torino in collaboration with the Energy Center Initiative that is committed towards finding
sustainable energy solutions for both urban and rural areas of developing countries.
Binbin Liu, Politecnico di Milano
Binbin Liu is Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano.
His scientific work is mainly carried out in the field of dynamics of mechanical systems with applications to rail vehicles, active control and condition monitoring.
His work has been published in leading international journals.
He has experience in teaching on topics of Rail Vehicle Dynamics and Train-Track Interaction, Mechanical System Dynamics and Mechanical Design.
Marco Mellia, Politecnico di Torino
Marco Mellia is Associate Professor in Telecommunications at the Electronics and Telecommunications Department of Politecnico di Torino.
His research interests are in traffic monitoring and analysis, and in applications of Big Data and machine learning techniques for data analysis, with applications to Cybersecurity and network monitoring in general.
He has co-authored over 200 papers and holds 7 patents. He was awarded the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize in 2013, and several best paper awards.
He is the coordinator of the SmartData@PoliTO center, which focuses on Big Data and Data Science.
Fabio Riva, Politecnico di Milano
Fabio Riva is Adjunct Professor in Sustainable Development, and Energy Researcher at the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano.
He is also teaching assistant of the course Thermodynamics for the degree programme in energy and aerospace engineering at Politecnico di Milano.
His research mainly deals with System Dynamics-based modelling and energy optimization techniques applied to sustainable rural energy planning and energy demand evaluation
for remote and rural areas of the world.
Edoardo Sabbioni, Politecnico di Milano
Edoardo Sabbioni is Associate Professor in Applied Mechanics at the Mechanical Engineering Department of Politecnico di Milano.
His research activity is mainly carried out in the field of stability, dynamics and control of mechanical systems, with applications to road and rail vehicles.
More in particular, he carried out numerical-experimental researches concerned with active safety of road vehicles, design of control systems to improve vehicle handling performance
and ride comfort, electrification of vehicles, autonomous vehicles, vehicle-infrastructure interaction and “smart” tires technology.
During his research activity, he cooperated and still cooperates with the main Italian automotive industries and he was involved in several Italian and European Community founded projects.
Michele Vignati, Politecnico di Milano
Michele Vignati received his master degree (2013) and PhD (2017) in mechanical engineering in Mechanical Department of Politecnico di Milano.
Here he is now postdoc in the research field of mechanical systems dynamics and control applied in the automotive field.
In particular, he focuses on active systems for electric vehicles and in autonomous driving.
He is also teaching assistant for the courses on Control and Actuating Devices and Mechanical Systems Dynamics.

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