Digital City

Im the newest episode in my series 'Looking for humane cities' I focus on digital justice. I believe that that Amsterdam is an inspiring example that has started to bring digital justice into practice.

Wie dat prettiger vindt kan ook de Nederlandse versie lezen van dit artikel: https://wp.me/p32hqY-1Q4

Las Vegas was hit by a cyber attack on 7 January which followed an earlier attack in New Orleans, with the city declaring a state of emergency on 13 December. The threat of cyber attacks is growing as cities digitalise their services and use datasets to provide more efficient delivery to citizens.

Metis Montessori Lyceum and Sensemakers Amsterdam celebrate the eighth anniversary of the Raspberry Pi with an AmsterJam. Anyone who is a Raspberry Pi fan or wants to know more about this super nice little computer is welcome. Do you have something to show? Do you want to present something or can you give a nice workshop, please let us know.

We are still busy completing the program, so if you have ideas, don't hesitate to contact us!

How might we automate access to a public digital ecosystem for citizens and machines in order to grow a conscious city? How might we incentivize all citizens and companies to interact with the public digital ecosystem of the city in order to improve livability, democratic representation and societal engagement?

Read our ecosystem document

Join our online ecosystem platform

#WiTNL-Women in Tech NL is the largest community and a platform for all women and girls in tech in Amsterdam and The Netherlands, We bring together Academia, Corporates and Start-Ups, individuals and organisations, women and men, everyone who is dedicated to work towards closing the gender gap in tech. We organize inspiring events, workshops, masterclasses, mentoring sessions, speaking opportunities, and many other career supportive activities. We collaborate with other initiatives, networks, tech and non-tech conferences, companies and organizations while building an eco-system that will help women in tech and female tech entrepreneurs thrive.

As a decade of change has come to an end, what will the 2020s bring for cities?

Much of our work with city leaders and governments starts from an immediate pressing need–a housing crisis or a rise in knife crime–but so often moves onto preparing for the future trends that will change all of our lives, and cities as we know them.

We are living in an age where the very idea of what it means to be a city is being redefined. Cities are evolving from mere forms of government—powered by breakthroughs in IoT, AI, and cloud platforms—to become the bridge between citizens, businesses, academia and the government itself.
Join us in Amsterdam for a transformative event that dives into what it means to be a smart city. Experience firsthand how cities are leveraging IoT technology platforms to drive unprecedented increases in efficiency, safety, livability, and overall quality of life. Network directly with the companies discussing their experiences on stage and see how you can partner together to transform cities and collective experiences.
We will address how cities are undergoing a massive digital transformation driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). From tackling tough challenges like climate change and aging populations to designing and implementing custom IoT solutions – the lessons shared around architecting on the intelligent edge will change how you approach cities forever.
Underneath the social responsibility we have to shape the future of the world around us, this IoT in Action event will strive to answer the fundamental question of how you can implement technology in a scalable, manageable, sustainable, inclusive, and secure way. Take the first step toward enabling smart cities by registering today.

We created a few weeks ago the platform StartSmart.city.

StartSmart.city is a special incubation/acceleration program specifically designed to support and invest in cities and startups that develop projects directly or indirectly related to smart cities to strengthen the social and economic fabric of the territory.

StartSmart.city was created with the goal of supporting and contributing to the progress of cities by attracting and retaining talent and entrepreneurs by providing different and alternative channels for access to investment and financing.

I hope you can reach us in 2020!
Let’s go together to a different dimension of smartness.🚀
Bring it on 2020! 🏄

The Netherlands has high policy ambitions to become 100% circular by 2050, and consume 50% less primary raw materials in 2030. Public procurement can be an incredibly powerful tool, and the Dutch government sees climate-neutral and circular procurement as a means to achieve significant CO2 reductions. However, a framework to quickly and easily assess what is green, circular and climate-neutral can be challenging.

Metabolic proposed a framework for impact measurement of Green Public Procurement, did an analysis of the current state of impact measurement and developed a roadmap towards a harmonized model for the public sector in the Netherlands. We approached the study on three different levels: the level of a product group, the level of an organization and the level of national reporting. Subsequently, we developed a roadmap with actions that should be taken in the coming 5 years in order to arrive at a more uniform impact monitoring for climate-neutral and circular procurement.

Implementation of the roadmap produced in the study will help the Dutch government develop a clear monitoring framework that helps public organizations compare purchase options and make sustainable purchasing decisions more easily.

This evening we will have three practical perspectives & applications of "digital twins":
- Tanguy Coenen from Imec will share their insights and best practises within the Digital Twin City of Antwerpen
- Marcel Gerrits & Paul Kootwijk on practical applications of IoT and AI to help ProRail manage themaintenance, safety & security of the railwail infrastructure
- Tom van Arman from CITYXL & TAPP on the digital twin of the Marineterrein

Based on experiences in a great variety of projects in 77 countries around the world, Richard Budel, CIO - Smart Cities, and CTO - Government & Public Sector Western Europe at Huawei, will talk about how to create a hype independent framework for smart city (IoT) projects.
Using cities like Gelsenkirchen as an example, Richard will talk about how to implement policy rulings like banning the video-registration of faces (did you know that for 99% of the smart city applications you don’t even need cameras?), and how to avoid issues like the Law of Unintended Consequences, accidentally creating new social issues while using the benefits from smart cities to solve another.
He'll finish up by talking about his personal projects for the coming years, related to sustainability, safety and security.

Get ready for our next event, it's all about ROBOTS!
Robots are known for their human looks and behaviour. Inspired by movies we often think of them as superhumans. But what are robots really?
On February 11th , 2020 we have the opportunity to listen to at least 3 Robot experts.

Randall van Poelvoorde, international robot expert, will speak about #ethics in the interaction between #humans and #robots;
Martijn R. Lukaart, serial #entrepreneur, will explain all about his #OddBot project and demo the robot version he brought to #CES in #LasVegas;
Marcia Richardson-Dusseldorp MBA-Master Black Belt, #Lean expert, will introduce you to the world of Robotic Process Automation (#RPA). She will also lead you through a #Speedworkshop to build your own #SoftwareRobot (Bring your own laptop, No programming skills required).

And of course, we will have drinks&bites before and after the talks.
If you are interested, please register because the seats are limited!

On https://lucht.smartgraph.bi we visualise the measurements of air quality in 4 cities (others can be added) on our independent data platform, Smart Graph. The graphs on Apeldoorn and Dordrecht are real time.
We have screen shots on the situation on new year eve for the Fine dust (pm2,5 and pm10) and noise (decibel) , nice to see the peak and the huge differences. Apeldoorn can be seen on the LinkedIn page of Quant-Base.

At Oddity.ai, we make video surveillance smart by recognizing violence, real-time. When violence occurs under the eye of the camera, an alert to the surveillance staff is being sent, so they can act accordingly. In the contemporary camera surveillance environment, a LOT is being missed, which we counter by applying our smart deep-learning algorithm.

We have demonstrated the effectiveness of our solution during a pilot in Eindhoven (Living Lab Stratumseind). Currently, we are still monitoring that location, with great results. We also accurately detected several fights which were missed by the surveillance staff (!)

When implemented, fights can be deescalated in an early stage, and perhaps even prevented.

We are now searching for a customer (police/municipality/Living Lab/etc.) that implements our solution in the surveillance room. It is already market-ready and privacy-compliant.

Oddity.ai is a university spinoff (Utrecht University) with three co-founders and two employees. We are based in Utrecht, but flexible to implement anywhere in The Netherlands. Please contact me (Thomas Alflen, co-founder and director of Oddity.ai) if you would like to know more!

We invite you to join us on the Digital Society Showcase! We will involve you in the projects we’ve worked on and tell you more about our plans and ambitions for the coming years.

Interact with the talented learners, play with our digital installations, network with our partners and start conversations about how we can contribute to a positive transformation of society.

PROGRAMME
16:30 | Doors open
17:00 | Opening Digital Society Showcase
17:03 | Presenting Design Across Cultures
17:05 | Data Driven Transformation track
17:15 | Digital to Physical track
17:25 | Systems for Sharing
17:35 | Invitation for drinks and check out the prototypes
20:00 | Wrap up

Technology like big data and smart sensors can help solve urban challenges. But when collecting data in the city, what public values are involved? Exploring new applications, like scan cars, helps to grasp the complexity of Responsible Urban Digitization.

The scan car as a use case
One example of sensing technologies used in cities are “scan cars”. These vehicles are equipped with sensors to collect data on the urban environment. Scan cars are becoming increasingly smart to improve efficiency and help the municipality to carry out tasks – from parking policy enforcement to waste registration.

But apart from making the city more efficient and clean, we question and explore what public and democratic values should be embedded in the implementation of these scan cars. For example, with regard to their purpose of urban data collection, could scan cars be designed in a way that make them (more) transparent, understandable or even contestable by citizens? In other words, what features could make these vehicles more “human”?

This November, together with UNSense, we invited representatives from the City of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, TADA and researchers from TU Delft to join us for a 3-day sprint to design “the scan car of the future”, that also looks at the human and fair values of the advances in technology. Continue reading this article here:

On Dec 2, Amsterdam Smart City and DataLab Amsterdam co-hosted the third “Data Dilemmas” event of the year — bringing together professionals to share experiences and dilemmas related to responsible use of data. Perspectives were featured from the cities of Hilversum, Boston, Amsterdam, and Reykjavik. A panel discussion followed which was moderated by Amsterdam Smart City’s program director, Leonie van den Beuken.

On Dec 2, Amsterdam Smart City and DataLab Amsterdam co-hosted the third “Data Dilemmas” event of the year — bringing together professionals to share experiences and dilemmas related to responsible use of data. Perspectives were featured from the cities of Hilversum, Boston, Amsterdam, and Reykjavik. A panel discussion followed which was moderated by Amsterdam Smart City’s program director, Leonie van den Beuken.

Herbert Steeman of Atos, the lead partner of a consortium which recently won a tender to develop a smart city data platform for the City of Hilversum, presented their vision for an open standard data platform. Working with Sustainder, Dynniq, Vodaphone-Ziggo and Esri, the platform will structure and combine data across various domains of the municipality. Herbert emphasized that the data platform does not in it of itself produce any results for the city; as such Atos will bring in a number of use cases already tested in other cities, for instance related to noise pollution and parking management.

Next, Jaclyn Youngblood, from the New Urban Mechanism department at the City of Boston, presented a number of data and civic innovation projects. Among them, “Where’s My Bus” is an open source application that makes it possible for parents to track their children’s school bus, helping reduce worry and frustration, especially during winter months when buses are more likely to be delayed. In a later phase of the project, children could tap-on and off the bus, automatically generating notification SMS’s for the parents. This led to ethical debates regarding tracking of buses vs children and how to do this in a safe and privacy-friendly way. Jaclyn reflected on the sensitivity of these discussions, especially given the history of surveillance technologies, which in Boston and other American cities have had a predominantly negative impact on communities of color. Jaclyn also presented “Beta Blocks,” a project that aims to engage people in a discussion about the deployment of technology in public realm through the use of a mobile exhibit.

Next-up Sander van der Waal from Waag presented their recent work on designing a framework for a Bicycle Data Commons, part of the European project Muvv. Together, Waag, the City of Amsterdam Chief Technology Office (CTO), and Vervoeregio (Transport Region Amsterdam) have the goal of designing a data commons where the community jointly sets the rules for access and use of data. Over a series of co-creation sessions, cycling and data experts worked to sketch a framework for a Bicycle Data Commons that aimed to secure data and privacy while making it possible to innovate by using data in new use cases. One of the key outcomes of the co-creation sessions was for stakeholders to articulate key values which would guide further developments, namely: 1. public interest 2. level playing field 3. transparency, 4. accessibility, and 5. sovereignty. The framework developed also aims to provide an alternative to the two dominant options when it comes to data collection: either you are being tracked or you can opt-out form the service. Waag advocates for a third option which gives citizens back control over what data they share.

The last presentation was by Óli Páll Geirsson, the City of Reykjavik’s Chief Data Officer (CDO). Óli’s task is to integrate various municipal data sets into a data-warehouse, as a way of supporting and improving the city’s capacity for evidence-driven decision making. A major barrier to achieve this data-driven organization is the archaic data architecture whereby data is locked up in silos. As the City of Reykjavik takes on this challenge, Óli and three of his colleagues visited Amsterdam to learn from Data Punt’s experience with similar developments.

During the panel discussion, several dilemmas were explored, for instance related to data minimization. In the time of “more” and “bigger” data, can governments train themselves to collect only the data that is necessary? The Cities of Amsterdam and Boston are working on this “data-minimization” concept.

Did you attend the Data Dilemmas event and do you have any additional thoughts or feedback from the discussion? Or do you have an example of a data dilemma which you would like to share with the community during a Data Dilemma event in 2020? Post your question or comment below or email <a>nancy@amsterdamsmartcity.com</a>.

This year, the Future City Foundation and 26 public and private partners are investigating how we should design the smart city. The network assumes that urban design and the products that result from it are radically changing. Just like it happened with other industries. They want to understand how it happens, what are the opportunities and what are the risks. They present the results of the research in the book: “A smart city, this is how you do it – Connected, flexible and meaningful: make the real future city”. The book is available in Dutch and a summary in English.

The original version of the book is in Dutch (212 pages) with theory about digitalization and technologization in vision and plans, 27 tutorials including the Model Bylaw Smart City Applications in the Public Space and 15 examples of smart city applications in the Netherlands. Download the Dutch version on https://future-city.nl/smartstedenbouw/

The English version (52 pages) focuses on the design principles for smart urban design:
>> We want a sustainable and democratic city;
>> In it we design everything as a democratic smart network;
>> We design flexibility;
>> We design meaningfully.
These are explained in detail. In addition, the Model Bylaw Smart City Applications in the Public Space is included in the book.

You can download the book for free on: https://future-city.nl/smarturbanplanning/

For more background information about the book, please see https://future-city.nl/smarturbanplanning/ And feel free to contact us if you like to know more about it and the follow-up projects.

This evening we have:
- Tinus Kanters on Stratumseind, a street full of bars & restaurant in Eindhoven that’s also a Living Lab where sensing is tested to improve safety and livability.
- Linda Bergman Founder & Machine Learning Instructor at A.I. Cafe (www.aicafe.nl). When neural networks or deep learning come in the news, it is generally about applications that involve images or videos. However, we can also apply deep learning to time series, and this of course is ideal for IoT applications. In this short lecture we will give a high level overview of deep learning for time series. And we will apply this to two different applications. -Diagnosing heart conditions using a mobile phone -Use iPhone motion sensors to detect whether the user is walking, running or sitting.

And this evening we'll have our End-of-Year drinks + a raffle (e.g. a ticket for The Things Conference:-)

Free Press Unlimited is offering a five to six month internship (32 hours a week) starting in January 2020. We're looking for a tech-savvy student or recent graduate with a relevant educational background and affinity with media development.

You will support several media projects implemented together with international partners. You will join the Gender, Safety & Accountability team in realising projects with global coverage in the field of digital safety and investigative journalism.

Are you drawn to whistleblowing platforms for media, online digital security courses for journalists? Do you feel confident about your knowledge of encryption, privacy, open source software and safe communication options? Then this internship is for you!