’We have to be realistic about the social-economical aspects of technological development’

Ákos Gyenge

In the competition organised by BME and the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), the students of our faculty won two of four categories. 

 In the first part of the BME Mechanical Engineering Blog interview series, we talked with Ákos Gyenge, and Donát Takács, students of our faculty, as a team won the big gold of the competition with their work in the category ’Smart cities and sustainable lifestyle’. Interview.

'The whole work was a great professional challenge: although I attended a few university lectures regarding urbanism, I have never delved into the topic this deeply before. However, the most challenging aspect was something else: considering the economic and social effects in the long term of novel, exciting solutions. The results of the current, rapid technological development are undoubtedly impressive, but the last decades have proven that  these developments can have unexpected yet significant social and ecological consequences. Moreover, the development of a city has a much larger inertia, than e.g. the smartphone market does: urban developments are hard to reverse and usually have long-term effects.' More