Citizens & Living
Projects

Due to lack of space and climate change, the future of living might need to partly move on to water areas. In our history of conquering the water, the Dutch have a head start in some of the challenges associated with living on- and with water. Researchers and designers are therefore imagining and conceptualizing floating urban development. However, to make it a truly realistic and imaginable future scenario, there are more hurdles to overcome. To realize floating neighborhoods, we’ll need to find solutions for more than only the technical aspects, like; financing, community support, ecological aspects, affordability, politics, etc.

Overcoming these barriers will be difficult. We’re currently focusing on urgent (housing)crises and our collective belief on urban development is mainly focused on ‘family apartments on land’. This challenge revolves around creating imaginable and workable scenarios of urban development on water.

In the past decade, we have witnessed a surge of cooperatives across society. From community-led energy projects to endeavours in collective mobility and housing, citizens and companies are increasingly organizing themselves to shape their surroundings, often driven by sustainability and social goals and most of them do this in a not for profit way. Despite this rich history and the ongoing proliferation of initiatives, cooperative efforts and their benefits often remain small-scale and localized and, in most cases, accessible only to specific and select demographics.

This challenge aims to help civil society organizations in the energy domain, such as energy cooperatives, to become more mainstream. We aim to create recognition, to create an understanding of mutual interests with the key stakeholders they have to work with, and to exchange knowledge for these organizations to grow faster or repeat.

The underground is filled with infrastructure and other assets, including electricity cables, fibre optic cables, gas pipelines, heat networks, sewers, and more. Additionally, underground spaces host natural elements crucial for maintaining a healthy urban environment, such as soil essential for urban trees. Consequently, various stakeholders regularly need access to the underground, each with their own interests, creating significant pressure on the underground. Frequent excavation leads to disruptions, extensive damage, and trees that don’t age past 60 (which is very young for trees).

Improvements can be made by enhancing collaboration among stakeholders, sharing more data, and collectively planning underground activities. Understanding the interests of all involved parties is crucial to developing an action plan aimed at enhancing the quality and management of the underground.

The True Price Lab is a project focusing on willingness to pay the true price for food and drink.

From 26 February to mid-June 2024, the restaurant and espresso bar in the Corry Tendeloo Building of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences will be dedicated to the True Price Lab. For four months, students and staff will be able to choose between paying the normal or true price for a number of products. This project is an initial exploration of consumers' willingness to pay the true price, which includes hidden environmental and social-impact costs.

True price versus consumer price

The true price can be defined as the price applicable after calculating and improving the true price of a product. The true price is based on the retail price plus the sum total of external social and environmental costs. Traditional pricing disregards these external costs, which are effectively paid for by society. For example, the retail price of a cup of coffee does not include the environmental damage of pest control or the underpayment of the farmers who grow the coffee.

The full extra amount that participants pay when they voluntarily opt for the true price will go to the non-profit organisation Solidaridad. Solidaridad wants to make the world a place where everything is made and bought in solidarity with people, the environment and future generations. Visitors to the restaurant and espresso bar can learn more about what their contributions will be used for by scanning a QR code.

Context
At the heart of the GEMINI Project lies a commitment to fostering innovation and to accelerate the transition towards climate neutrality in mobility solutions.
Goal 11 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals advocates for access to safe, affordable, and sustainable transport systems. Nowadays, transport plays a significant role on air pollution and is one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and is the only sector in the EU with increased Green House Gas (GHG) emissions compared to 1990.
The promotion of sustainable and innovative mobility solutions can help towards reducing GHG and carbon footprints, improving air quality, and achieving climate goals.

Project brief
The GEMINI Project (2023-2026 “Greening European Mobility through cascading innovation Initiatives” is a Horizon Europe funded project with 43 partners led by the Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI).

To accelerate the transition towards climate neutrality, GEMINI aims to foster widespread adoption of sustainable shared mobility solutions. To achieve this, the project will develop and test innovative business models for New Mobility Services (NMS) such as shared connected automated vehicles and shared mobility public transport through public-private partnerships. The NMS business models will be demonstrated in ten European Cities (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Munich, Leuven, Ljubljana, Paris-Saclay, Porto and Turin).

Additionally, GEMINI will create digital tools and platforms that accommodate various mobility services, promoting collaboration and integration within the mobility sector. The project will actively engage stakeholders in the co-creation process, introducing Mobility as a Commons (MaaC) and incentivizing behavioural shifts and user acceptance of these new mobility options.

Furthermore, GEMINI will formulate policy recommendations to enable the scaling up and replication of successful mobility solutions. By aligning with Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) and urban mobility planning frameworks, the project aims to contribute to a comprehensive policy package that guides and incentivizes future mobility innovations. The GEMINI project envisions fostering sustainable, accessible, and affordable shared mobility solutions that contribute to a safer and more environmentally friendly urban mobility landscape.

Objectives

1. Develop and test sustainable business models for New Mobility Services (NMS) to increase shared mobility solutions (MaaS and MaaC) for various user groups, including enterprises, families, and tourists.
2. Create digital enablers, including collaboration platforms and multimodal MaaS solutions, to integrate and facilitate a wide range of mobility services.
3. Actively involve stakeholders in the co-creation of new mobility options and integrate Social Innovation practices to incentivize behavioural changes and user acceptance.
4. Formulate policy recommendations to support the scaling up and replicability of successful mobility solutions, contributing to the development and implementation of SUMPs and urban mobility planning frameworks.

Cenex NL key contributions
The team plays a vital role in developing policy recommendations and technology roadmaps to accelerate the deployment of innovative mobility services. Through collaboration with local authorities in twinning cities, these roadmaps will align with the fast-track deployment of shared mobility trends in the short and medium term. Additionally, Cenex NL will contribute to the development of the Handbook consolidating the project’s learnings and offering practical guidance to cities and citizens across Europe.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101103801.

Context
Africa is the fasted growing continent on the planet, measured both in GDP as in population, which historically is accompanied with a growth in energy consumption. With an eye on the Paris Agreement and COP26 it is clear the energy should be Low or even Zero Emission. However, it is important this does not stifle the economic growth allowing millions to climb out of poverty. With this in mind the EU funded the SESA project that aims at mitigating climate change while improving access to sustainable energy under affordable, reliable conditions.

Project brief
SESA is a four-year (2021-2025) EU H2020 funded R&D project designed to combine innovative energy access solutions for a range of applications in both urbanised and rural contexts in Africa. These solutions will include decentralised renewables (solar photovoltaics), innovative energy storage systems (including second life batteries), waste-to-energy systems (biomass to biogas), smart microgrids, (micro) mobility solutions, climate-proofing, resilience and adaptation, and rural internet access.
SESA focusses on testing, validating and replicating those energy innovations through co-developed demonstration actions in 9 sites across the continent (1 Living Lab for testing, 4 for validation and 4 for replication).
The collaborative project is the result of a strong partnership between leading European and African universities, research centres, industry actors, local governments, knowledge and implementation organizations and networks.

Objectives
The main goal of SESA is to support a diversity of affordable solutions that help provide access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy services for all, creating new business opportunities and developing concepts that can directly contribute to a low-carbon development. It further provides policy makers with recommendations aiming at creating a favourable regulatory environment to ensure long-term impacts of the solutions developed. In addition, a key deliverable for the project is the SESA Toolbox, which will contain materials relating to the following main building blocks:

• Impact assessment
• Capacity building
• Business plans and models
• Innovations tested in demonstration actions
• Design, operations and management for different solutions
• Financing & funding options
• Policy support

Cenex NL’s key contributions
Cenex NL leads the work package responsible for the development of the key repository of the project, the so called “SESA Toolbox”, and the evaluation of the project results available in the toolbox. Our team will be involved in three tasks:

1. Build a scalable and harmonised toolbox for advanced implementation, management and operation strategies of efficient sustainable energy solutions.
2. Develop an evaluation framework based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of the proposed solutions.
3. Assess the impact of the solutions developed in at least five the demonstration and validation projects using the framework developed in the previous task.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation progamme under grant agreement No 101037141

City Managers Association in Romania (AAPRO) was founded in 2010, as a follow-up of a pilot project called “Public Administrator – a success factor for an efficient management at local level” carry out by the Central Unit for the Public Administration Reform (a structure within the Romanian Ministry of Administration and Interior Affairs).

AAPRO is commited to form a national, relevant, elite and professional Body of City Managers, who must have a clear image on the background of this career and become responsible for their professional conduct and self-improvement.

The initiative to introduce the City manager position at each local level in Romania targets an higher lever of professionalism at counties, municipalities, cities and communes staff.

The romanian equivalent of the city manager can be hired upon the Mayor’s proposal or the one of the local council (wich must give the final aproval anyway), after a transparent selection process. His main responsibilities are to coordinate some of the public administration affairs and services (on an agreed agenda) and to do other specific tasks delegated by the Mayor / President of County Council, all of these concluded in a management contract, based on clear management objectives and performance criteria.

The City Manager is one common thing among the efficient and successful local governments
all over the world. Adopting him in the romanian administration was a step from public adminsitration to public management, focusing on delivery good qaulity services for the citizens. The Public Administrator, as we call it here, is not another birocrat, but a strategist, a visonary, balancing day-to-day (organizational) problem solving with planning and shaping the future, acording to the adopted local strategy and the community aspirations.

At the local level, the elected body and the technical staff, coordinated by the Mayor or the President of County Council and the Public Administrator, must first find aut and understand what people want, need and hope, then come up with a strategy, an action plan, seek for solutions, means and resources, involve the local actors such as bussines community and civil society, and communicate at any moment what has been done so far, and what is is comming.

In this picture, the City manager has a leading role, he is an communicator, technology facilitator, and can be, if the Mayor delegates him, even budget chief authorizing officer. Currently, in Romania activate more than 700 Public Administrators (the number varies from month to monyh), as follows :

• Out of 41 counties, 34 ocupied positions and 7 vacancies
• Out of 103 municipies, 56 ocupied positions and 37 vacancies
• Out of 216 cities, 60 ocupied positions and 65 vacancies
• Out of 2850 communes, 550 ocupied positions and 350 vacancies

Those above figures makes 459 vacancies in total, with the observation that, in many cases, we are talking about small comunes with scarce Romanian City Managers Association (AAPRO) conducted a survey among its members that identified the needs for training, building local capacities on climate protection, urban regeneration, structural changes and energy policies, concept of smart city and creatively intelligent communities.

Establishing appropriate training structures for the now and future City Managers is essential for supporting the development of the cities and climate strategies (it aims to encourage cities and municipalities to take concrete actions for climate protection in Romania), urban regeneration and structural changes, concept of smart city and creatively intelligent communities.

This project focuses on the competences that the city managers must have in order to achieve a multiplication effect through their contribution. The nationwide implementation of a systematic local energy management using the City Managers can thus make an important step to tapp existing saving potentials in different regions and to establish a sustainable portfolio management.

We hope that, with your support, that the outcomes of this important project, can be forwarded on an extended scale to the local institutions (schools, hospitals, etc) and communities, as good practices, improving the energy efficiency status and reducing the energy poverty, urban regeneration and structural changes, concept of smart city and creatively intelligent communities.

The pilot group will be composed of 50 to 80 city managers upon their self enrollment and applying few clear selection parameters : level of municipality, experience, english language, etc. The target group will be afterward authorized to further train other city managers and employees of the local municipalities. This core team is expected to disseminate the information and to act as an experts group in our Association.

As Romania has (at this moment) a deficit of at least 250 city managers, the learning and workshops center will be powerful tool, a public management academy and a testing facility for the ones applying for this position.

Our idea: The Supportclub, let’s look after someone, as a team
The Supportclub makes volunteering for another person fun and easy to do. Our app carefully designs teams around a person in need, based on skills and fields of interests. Our network partners invites people that need a little help or company, informal care to make a profile as a supportee. Our campaign recruits people that want to help somebody, the supporters. They also make a profile.

The Supportclub app matches supporters based on their interests and skills. The app creates (temporary) teams around a supportee, e.g. Annie → Support team Annie. The Supportclub facilitates the teams to work together for Annie providing handy features like notification, a calendar, chat and monthly meet-up for the team.
 
The Supportclub proposition for supporters:

• look after a person that needs some help (18+)
• in a carefully designed team
• for a fixed period of time
• with social team activities
• facilitated by an app

Join the Supportclub!
 
The Support club proposition for supportees:

• Do you need some help or company?
• Register yourself at The Support Club and get a team. Three to five people that are willing to look after you. They do it together and make new friends while doing it.
• You let us know what your needs are and we do the rest.

Join the Supportclub!  

In large and diverse public organizations like the Gemeente Haarlemmermeer, communication can sometimes be hindered by silos. Different departments or teams in the organization may work independently leading to a lack of information sharing and coordination. With so many channels and platforms available, it can be difficult to filter out the information that is relevant and important to employees. This can lead to information overload and make it difficult for employees to stay updated on important updates.

Thus, the trainee team from the Digital Transformation Traineeship Programme at Digital Society School embarked on a challenge on how Gemeente Haarlemmermeer can be facilitated to become a smarter, more connected, transparent and digitally inclusive organisation.

Read more about the project on the website of Digital Society School!

Pientere Tuinen is een 3-jarig project dat begin april 2023 is gestart. Tot eind 2023 kunnen nieuwe deelnemers aansluiten bij het grootste participatieproject in Nederland. Pientere Tuinen is een samenwerking van 7 publieke en private partijen.

De aanpak in Pientere Tuinen draait om drie samenhangende onderdelen.
 
1. Data verzamelen met een slimme sensor en een interactief/educatief dashboard van de eigen tuin voor de individuele inwoner,
2. Kwantitatief (data-analyse) en kwalitatief (interviews/surveys) onderzoek naar strategieën voor een gezonde leefomgeving en duurzame gedragsverandering,
3. Advies op maat aan bewoners over de inrichting en het beheer van de tuin

Het doel van Pientere Tuinen is een groenere, gezondere leefomgeving te creëren door het bewustzijn en de motivatie bij tuinbezitters te vergroten. Dat doen we door data te verzamelen, onderzoek uit te voeren en meer maatwerk te bieden in de advisering en voorlichting aan bewoners.
 
Enkele voordelen van uw deelname aan Pientere Tuinen op een rijtje
- Tuinbezitters krijgen een bodemsensor die drie jaar lang hitte, bodemkwaliteit en het vochtgehalte meet, waarvan resultaten zichtbaar zijn op een dashboard
- Tuinbezitters krijgen (mede op basis van de data) specifieke voorlichting voor het vergroenen van de tuin door middel van tuintips, stappenplan en mogelijke (wijk)workshops
- Deelnemende organisaties zijn onderdeel van het grootste participatieproject van Nederland met ca. 5.000 deelnemers en meetpunten door heel Nederland
- Deelnemende organisaties worden betrokken bij twee langdurige, landelijke onderzoeksprogramma’s naar motivatie voor vergroening en gedragseffecten van verschillende interventiestrategieën, en data-analyses van milieu- en gezondheidsaspecten
- Als organisatie bent je zelf als partner zichtbaar in een landelijke PR- en communicatiecampagne rondom het project.
- Je leert zelf binnen de community over structurele, duurzame vergroening met uw inwoners onder andere van de onderzoeksprogramma’s en andere projectpartners

Does your organisation work with vulnerable target groups in Amsterdam, or are you a tech company with great ideas for digital solutions for this group? Create tech applications together for the challenges of vulnerable communities during the European CommuniCity project.

From 28 February to 31 March, you can submit your proposal for one of the challenges to CommuniCity for a chance to win a €12,500 grant to test your idea in practice.

How does it work?

• Companies or organisations submit their proposal via the CommuniCity website;
• The submissions are assessed against the set criteria and thus the winners are selected;
• The winning entries receive a grant of 12,500 euros to develop and test their solution together with the target group in Amsterdam.

For more information about the project, the challenges for Amsterdam and application conditions check the website below!

My name is Joe Calodich and I work as a researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the research group Vital Cities and Citizens. I am currently looking for members of the city administrations in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Prague, Tallinn, Vienna, Zurich, Brussels, or Munich who are interested in participating in a research interview.

The study which I am asking your participation for focuses on how large European cities have undertaken the digitalisation process of the public administration and how this process has affected the workings and the policies. I would also like to learn about some concrete examples on the use of big data related to this digitalisation process.

I hope to complete the interviews by the end of February 2023. Each interview will last between one hour and fifteen minutes and one hour and a half. The interview will be recorded and the content will be exclusively used for academic purposes (analysis, scientific publications, presentations, reports) and within the boundaries of the study’s goals. The gathered information will be treated by complying with anonymity and confidentiality criteria as defined in the social sciences regarding the use of personal information.

If you, or a colleague, is interested in participating, please send me an email at: 627583jc@eur.nl.

I look forward to hearing from some of you soon!

Technological and innovative developments are moving faster than ever before. As a government, you want and need to keep up with these developments. At the same time, the use of digitalisation and data often leads to undesired results, increasing the distance between citizens/entrepreneurs and the government.

The municipality of Haarlemmermeer is shifting her focus from 'the system is central, people have to become more digitally savvy to 'people are central, our systems have to become human-centric’. The underlying question is: how do you really put people at the centre of digitalisation and the design of digital systems?

Do you want to know more or contribute to this challenge? Contact me via sophie@amsterdamsmartcity.com or let me know via the comments below.

Project’s current phase

Jeroen Brink and Christine Groothuis from the municipality of Haarlemmermeer introduced this challenge to the Amsterdam Smart City network on the 7th of November, 2022. During a co-creation session, we discussed that there are two main elements of this complex challenge that we would like to focus on. On the one hand, we’re talking about a radical and fundamental shift. A different way of thinking within governmental institutions. This shift requires a more philosophical and substantive conversation about how we would like our digital public space and systems to look like. But on the other hand, we want to think big but also start small. Therefore, the municipality of Haarlemmermeer would like to embrace a real-life case to bring human-centred digital systems to life.

On the 1st of December, we organised a follow-up session with Amsterdam Smart City partners. During this session, Max Kortlander (Waag) presented the Public Stack. This project puts the public value at the centre to create open, democratic and sustainable digital public spaces. Following this introduction, we did a futures-thinking exercise led by Sacha van Tongeren (Kennisland), to think about how we want the digital public space to look like in the future. And additionally, we used empathy maps to synthesize our collective knowledge about our audience, which brought us closer to a common understanding of who they are.

Photo: Daan Rozinga, The Incredible Machine

The Responsible Sensing Lab is currently working on a few projects regarding smart doorbells.

Smart doorbells are like a security camera's, but available for everyone. Always on, and owned by private parties, the smart doorbell is destined to have an impact on our privacy. As of now, there could be thousands of smart doorbells in Amsterdam, filming public space. We don t have a clear view on the numbers, and we do not know what the owners do with the collected data. Smart doorbell owners are often not aware of the privacy issues.

One of the Responsible Sensing Lab's projects is Shutterring. The Shutterring project aims to make smart doorbells more responsible by ensuring the privacy of bypassers and owners while keeping the main functionality of the device intact. Shutterring is a design by The Incredible Machine.

Inspired by Shutterring, the Lab has started another project regarding responsible smart doorbells: Challenging the design of smart doorbells. In order to challenge the current design of smart doorbells (IoT doorbells with integrated cameras) a few alternative smart doorbells have been created through speculative design. The goal of this project is to kickstart a conversation about how to deal with the presence of smart doorbells in the city of Amsterdam. How could smart doorbells be designed in a way that they align better with the values of the city and its population?

The Responsible Sensing Lab team will present both their smart doorbell projects during the demo day on 11 October. Stay tuned!

On Thursday, March 17 Grisha Zotov pitched some of the dilemmas his team encountered during the process of urban design. Among others, he touched upon densification and building height as aspects that influence intensity of human interaction.

Located in the former industrial zone, Schinkelkwartier is an example of inclusive and interdisciplinary redevelopment. Destined to be a diverse mix-use hub, Schinkelkwartier will develop in several phases during 25 years. At an early stage local stakeholders and neighbors of the area were involved.

On behalf of Architectural Prescription Grisha raised questions about opportunities and risks offered by water-related location and complexity due to the amount of interested parties.

Suggestions, ideas and feedback are always welcome.

Local or guest, reach out and share what you think!

Open access toolkit of people-centered methods for urban planners, designers, and advocates to make cycling inclusive and accessible to all.

Building the largest interactive LEGO model of the future city ever!

Imagine a model of the city; however, instead of a literal representation, this is a sculpture that holds ideas and dreams from citizens, policymakers, entrepreneurs and visitors about what the city might be like after we solve major transitional challenges (e.g. sustainability, energy, equality, smart).

What would it feel like to be in this city? What do people wish this future city to become?

the goal
A model of the city that contains the ideas that a diverse group of people have about how the city might emerge from major transitional change like climate adaptation, sustainability, equality, smart. Imagine the city from what might be and what opportunity change offers.

the form
A room-sized model built with LEGO in a public space and with interactivity (e.g. app / QR link / AR) to share the stories that this model contains.

the process
Lego is an powerful way to evoke and capture stories about how people think about something. Through a series of workshops, people from all parts of the city will be invited to share how they think about the future of the city and capture their stories in a collective model. An interactive installation opens up those stories to passers-by and other participants.

partners
finance, organisational, tech

call to action
Get in touch if you want to contribute to the realisation of the largest LEGO city vision model ever!

Growing population, aging infrastructure, lack of mobility-related resources, and inefficient transport networks are leading to higher traffic congestion, road safety, and supply of mobility services in urban areas. It has become important for cities to look for smart mobility solutions to tackle these problems. Intelligent Transportation System is one such innovative concept that enables reliable and more personalized travel experience to move around in cities. Let’s have a look at the concept in detail.

What is an Intelligent Transportation System?

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) strives to innovate, plan, operate, evaluate, and manage transportation systems by leveraging advanced information and communication technologies. ITS refers to the use of technology to collect and analyze information related to the sector to deliver integrated transportation solutions.

It focuses on various modes of transportation, infrastructure, vehicles, traffic management, stakeholders, and smart mobility. From a holistic point of view, it rectifies errors related to transportation, infrastructure and enables systematic management of the entire transport system by leveraging a wide range of technology. It is one of the important components of many innovative transportation solutions like Mobility as a Service, Connected, and automated mobility.

Moreover, effective use of infrastructure, capacity, technology in ITS requires a lot of planning well in advance by ITS specialists. That can be implemented by collaboration or public-private partnerships. Because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration while implementing ITS, e.g., transport modes, design, routing, vehicles, technology type, and traffic flows, to make transportation safe and well-coordinated.

What is the need For ITS?

Transport authorities continue to raise the bar for safe and hassle-free transportation for commuters, but there are other challenges that commuters face related to urban congestion, inadequate road infrastructure, aging infrastructure, road safety, inefficient public transportation, and higher energy consumption. ITS can play an important role in solving these problems and better manage and control the transportation systems in real-time.

ITS facilitates new opportunities and more transportation choices integrated with easy-to-use technology. It is a multi-disciplinary concept that presents much-needed and cost-effective transportation solutions for smart cities. ITS can:

• Use resources and infrastructure effectively (existing as well as new)
• Plan, design, and implement comprehensive transportation systems
• Offers multi-modal, adequate, and on-demand transportation options
• Enhance public transportation management and its attractiveness
• Combat urban congestion
• Improve road safety and security
• Reduce fuel and energy consumption levels
• Control and manage traffic in the cities
• Make transport safe, efficient, manageable, and sustainable

We gooien in Amsterdam nog steeds ons gft-afval bij het huishoudelijke afval. Zonde vinden wij! Van dit gft-afval kan namelijk goede compost gemaakt worden. Daarom zijn we in mei 2020 samen met Stichting Onschatbare Waarde van start gegaan met het project Van Afval naar Oogst.

De centrale locatie van het project is in de buurttuin van I Can Change The World With My Two Hands, een initiatief van Onschatbare Waarde, in Amsterdam West. Onze gezamenlijke ambitie was 100 Amsterdammers te betrekken bij afvalscheiding en hergebruik. Meer dan 100 mensen hebben zich aangemeld en leveren nu wekelijks hun gf-afval in bij de buurttuin waar waardevolle compost van wordt gemaakt.

De Gezonde Stad werkt aan een groene, circulaire en inclusieve stad, niet door er lang over te praten, maar door te doen, samen met een community van bewoners, bedrijven, overheden en andere organisaties. We planten bomen, leggen buurtparken en moestuinen aan, we organiseren events om lokaal voedsel op de kaart te zetten, we zijn trekker van het platform Van Amsterdamse Bodem en we sluiten kringlopen, zodat afval weer tot iets waardevols kan worden omgezet.

Volg ons op social media of check degezondestad.org om op de hoogte te blijven.

Shuttercam is a project by Responsible Sensing Lab (RSL), a collaboration between the City of Amsterdam and AMS Institute. In essence, RSL is a testbed for conducting research and experiments on how smart sensing technologies in public space – like cameras – can be designed in a way that makes the digital city 'responsible’.

At the Lab we invite academics and practitioners responsible for digital systems in the city to explore how to integrate social values such as autonomy, privacy and transparency in the design of these sensing systems in public space.

How to know when a camera ‘sees’ you?
The Shuttercam project originated based on the notion that citizens currently can not directly know or see if and when cameras in public space are monitoring you or not. The project also questions the necessity for many non-security related cameras in the city to be switched on indefinitely.

Experimenting with 3 prototypes at Marineterrein
The Shuttercam project will test 3 prototypes. These are installed at Marineterrein Amsterdam Living Lab (MALL) in the upcoming weeks.

First and foremost, the cameras within this project are all part of the crowd monitoring system by the City of Amsterdam, which is a privacy friendly system. So what do these cameras record or see for example?

A crowd monitoring system works with a camera that has an algorithm read out and analyzes video images. In addition to measuring crowds and displaying those crowds in usable numbers, the algorithm can also determine whether people keep a distance of 1.5 meters. All this is done in an anonymous manner that naturally complies with all privacy legislation.

The video images are not watched by a human but are processed automatically. Only a few frames are saved with unrecognizable, blurred people's faces. Those frames help to "train" the algorithm. Furthermore, the images are not saved. Continue reading about the the Shuttercam project >>