‘Smart Cities’ as centres for user-driven open innovation

Connected Smart Cities using Future Internet technology in a user-friendly way to enable a truly knowledge-based society.

Connected Smart Cities using Future Internet technology in a user-friendly way to enable a truly knowledge-based society.

On November 18, 2010, some 200 professionals from across Europe gathered in Helsinki, Finland, for the Connected Smart Cities Conference — a convening of practitioners, academics and both public and private sector representatives committed to advancing the Smart City development, as well as those only curious to find out what “fuzz” is all about. The conference was organized jointly by the City of Helsinki together with the EU-funded FIREBALL –project, which is bring together the Future Internet, Living Labs and Smart Cities communities, Forum Virium Helsinki, Culminatum Innovation, Aalto University and European Network of Living Labs, and sponsored by IBM and Sitra (Finnish Innovation Fund).

During the day, a wide range of those interested in future internet, user-driven innovation in city contexts especially through living labs enjoyed the opportunity of meeting and learning from each other; discussing and clarifying common goals and different experiences; hoping to shape concrete strategies for Smart City advancement. Among the speakers Prof. Dr. Pieter Ballon (EPIC, ENoLL Secretariat), Dave Carter (ENoLL Council member, MDDA) and Dr. Alvaro de Oliveria (ENoLL President) and the afternoon event was moderated by ENoLL Vice President Jarmo Eskelinen (Forum Virium Helsinki).

Their organizational titles and backgrounds ranged from City Officials, Development Directors to IT-Specialists, Professors to Designers and Engineers. This variety brought a dynamic mixture of opinions and comments and it reflects the fact that Smart Cities is a theme that interests many different sectors and all of these should be involved in defining what Smart City means for them.

Participants agreed that facing the grand societal challenges of the future, in particular cities, which are in charge of a multitude of public policies, by taking on the benefits of the most modern ICT-technology, adding intelligence in their services and doing so by involving the citizens in the development of these services, can implement new innovative city strategies, which contribute to urban sustainability and the overall quality of the life the citizens.

The event was opened by the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Mr. Pekka Sauri, following presentations of Helsinki Design Capital 2012 by Director of Economic Development of the City of Helsinki, Eero Holstila and different Smart City initiatives and projects in Helsinki, including presentations of the EU-funded new CIP Smart City pilots. And finally, ENoLL President Alvaro de Oliveira gave insight into how networked Living Labs are boosting Smart Cities.

The aim of the conference — in Helsinki, and beyond — was to further clarify the role of the cities as innovation environments, stimulating more effective networking and experience sharing among cities to accelerate adoption of new technologies and eventually to help city officials find ways to be more effective in applying new smart concepts, tools and talents.

This intention, manifested in the launch of the Connected Smart Cities Network of the core cities of Fireball, namely Amsterdam, Manchester, Lisbon, Barcelona and Helsinki, will continue to work closely with the EUROCITIES network and the European Network of Living Labs, exchanging best practices and hoping to find new ways forward to boost and sustain the capacity for open innovation, co-production and sustainability to future internet enable services in cities across Europe.

Through activities like the Connected Smart Cities Conference and the initiatives it engendered, organizers hope to build the field, encourage research and implementation, and simply to help establish a new generation of city officials and active citizens whose idealism will be matched by their awareness of these developments as well as their practical skills. In a word, to aspire a movement that will contribute to making our cities (and whole Europe) more sustainable, green and open communities.

The Conference was constructed around two sessions: in the morning the formal part, followed by the afternoon presentations of different Smart City-projects and further moving on to even questioning the overall landscape of the Smart Cities and the sustainability of EU-funded projects.  Each Q&A session began with a brief presentation by the moderator, followed by wide ranging and colourful discussion and debate.

The event even created a somewhat heated debate on Twitter, by both believers and skeptics. As one of them pointed out: “Biggest takeaway from today is that smart cities, sensors and open data etc are not Internet fads but EU level priorities”.

FIREBALL Helsinki SMART City Showcase from Fireball 4 Smart Cities on Vimeo.