BIOGRAPHY

Martijn de Waal (1972) is a writer and researcher focussing on the relation between digital media and urban culture, with a specific interest in public space. He is currently employed as a senior researcher at the Lectorate of Play and Civic Media at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Formerly he worked as an assistant professor in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. In 2009 he spent a semester as a visiting scholar at the M.I.T. Center for Civic Media.

In November 2016 De Platformsamenleving (The Platform Society) was published, a book De Waal co-authored with Jose van Dijck and Thomas Poell (An English version is in the planning for 2017/18). In 2014 he wrote The City as Interface (Rotterdam: Nai010 Publishers), a book on the relation between digital media and the urban public sphere. Other key articles include Owning the city: New media and citizen engagement in urban design (co-authored with Michiel de Lange) and The Ideas and Ideals in Urban Media Theory (published in Foth. et. al. From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen, Cambridge: MIT Press 2012).

With Michiel de Lange, in 2007 De Waal founded TheMobileCity.nl, an international think tank and research network on New Media and Urban Culture. Over the last few years The Mobile City has organized a variety of conferences and workshops, in amongst other Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Some of De Waals recent activities and research projects include The Hackable City, a research project on collaborative citymaking in the Network Society, and Design & The City, a four day event he curated on citizen-centered design approaches for the smart city.