Iskander is the founder and chair of Cities of Things, a research program that originated at Delft University of Technology faculty of Industrial Design, where he was a visiting professor and lab coordinator. Now, it’s a foundation for a knowledge platform in partnership with academic and industry partners. A special project is Wijkbot (Hoodbot), a prototype toolkit for robotic things developed in partnership with the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Iskander has been exploring human and machine intelligence relations from a design perspective, focusing on coexisting with intelligent things and their societal impact. Since 2024 Iskander founded Target is New as an independent future research studio, as a spin-off from the weekly newsletter with the same name.
Iskander is also the initiator and chair of the Dutch chapter of ThingsCon, which has been organizing community events since 2014. These events reflect responsible technology and the Internet of Things.
Before Iskander was a strategy and innovation director and lab manager at INFO digital agency, initiator at the Behavior Design Amsterdam meetup, and co-organizer of the Tech Solidarity initiative. Iskander has been a presenter and host of talks and workshops on near-future technologies since 2008.
Contact
i.r.smit@hva.nl