We are excited to  welcome one of two new Effective Member to ENoLL following the August 2015 General Assembly held during OpenLivingLab Days 2015; Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality – Smart City Istanbul from Turkey.

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) holds a very important place in local administration organization of Istanbul. Its area of responsibility encompasses the entire provincial territory, which spans a total area of 5,343 km2. IMM has 28 municipal enterprises, 2 subsidiary public utility corporations (Transport Authority and Water & Sanitation Authority) and 43,500 employees in total. It is responsible for wide variety of areas including environment, natural-gas supply, energy, infrastructure, planning and development, IT, transportation, community services and vocational education, health-wellness, food & catering, culture, tourism etc.

Istanbul, opening gate of Turkey to the world, has ambitions to be a technology hub of Turkey. With the vision of the leading and sustainable city along with high quality of life by patronizing its unique heritage, Istanbul is pioneering city of Turkey in which research and development, innovation and technological production is intensively supported and invested and also has high potential of users. In this regard, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) has decided to establish Smart City Istanbul Living Lab to increase innovative ideas and pave the way for its flourishing in Istanbul. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is committed to facilitate life of its people by its investments, for this reason, Smart City Istanbul Living Lab aims at enhancing innovative products and services in Istanbul, increasing the living standards and meeting the needs of users and many sectors such as industry, services, finance, tourism, health and etc.

Creating a smart city requires highly skilled people with innovative and creative thinking. In order to reveal innovative and creative thinking, an open platform where users and developers come together to develop innovative products and services facilitating life of people and contributing to being smart city is necessary. In this regards, Smart City Istanbul Living Lab fulfils this expectation in Istanbul and aims to extending living labs in Turkey by serving as a model.

The main focus is to create a living environment for users and different sectors of society in order to reveal their innovative ideas by collaboration of public-private sectors and users. In this context, SCILL represents an open platform for public-private sector and users with a mutually accepted goal: to increase life standards of society by taking into account the needs of users and sectors in the city regarding research and technological development. What makes SCILL unique is to have such a big open laboratory in Istanbul committed to develop research and development. The urban solutions produced in SCILL can be a model for other cities. The method of revealing innovative ideas is based on co-creation by multiple actors such as universities, citizens, companies, research institutions, SME’s, NGOs, experts public institutions and etc. SCILL also presents experimentation lab for products and services suitable for the needs of urban solutions. The main topics the SCILL focus are transport, ICT, energy, environment and health.

Following an incredible week in Istanbul for OpenLivingLab Days 2015 we are thrilled that IMM join ENoLL as a Living Lab in the 9th Wave and become an Effective Member. We look forward to collaboring closely with them over the coming years and watching their smart city project grow. Discover more about the Living Lab here.