Tom van Arman

While it’s easy to find Gorillas, Getir, Flink, and Zapp flash delivery services in iTunes or Google Play app stores, It’s not so easy to locate these many grocery depots in Amsterdam.

In this interactive map we located the many physical locations of these dark stores to see the saturated landscape of flitsbezorging (flash delivery) infrastructure in Amsterdam. The goal of the map is to help consumers choose delivery services based on proximity to homes / businesses and help calm some inner city bike routes!

Curious to see the 10minute cycle zones or the locations of the many dark stores in Amsterdam? Check out this map and more information about dark stores here.

PODCAST: In this episode of the Tech Data Tech on Stage podcast we discuss thorny 21st century issues like opting-in and opting out of public space, innovation outpacing governments and planners, hyper transparency = open source & open data, and “greening of IT” versus “greening by IT” . Awesome round table with Lieke Hamers of Dell Technologies, Tom van Arman of TAPP, Markus Pfundstein of LIFE electronic and Kees Tolsma of Tech Data.  A great 30min session moderated by Danny Frietman and produced by Patrick Vogelaar

Stories from the living labs front line: Bureau Marineterrein and Johan Cruijff Arena

Listen on:

• Spotify
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Last year the city of Amsterdam released its “Digital City Agenda” showcasing 22 initiatives that aim to protect the digital rights of our fellow citizens. This year, Amsterdam will be one of the first municipalities to ever host a new online public register of sensors to inform its residents and visitors what kind of data  is being collected from public space - and most importantly where these sensors are located. In the next 6 months, the municipality will be informing the business community about this new obligation and how it will be enforced.

Between the “Digital City Agenda” and the “Sensor Register” we begin to witness a blurry intersection between privacy protections of the online and offline world we inhabit. As a smart city activist, I was intrigued how these municipal ambitions could be manifested into the design profession. And if so, how architects or urban planners could be involved in this debate.

As Arcam’s Architect in Residence I look forward to the opportunity to ask my fellow architects and urban planners these kinds of thorny questions.

If you are interested in this topic join me and and Indira van 't Klooster on our upcoming talk on privacy and personal data with four national political parties Bij1 , GroenLinks, D66 and Volt who are participating in upcoming Amsterdam municipal elections. See the program and register for “Election Discussion on Privacy in the Public Space” event Saturday, 12 March 2022. Here: https://arcam.nl/events/verkiezingsgesprek-privacy-in-de-publieke-ruimte/

For those of you who know, Marineterrein Amsterdam has been a test area to explore responsible counting of crowds (big and small) in a living lab environment. Summer temperatures are bringing large numbers people to the Marineterrein to cool off - but earlier this winter / spring, the crowd monitor revealed some fun facts about how people made use the inner-city living lab during the Covid19 lockdown.

This summer we’re collecting feedback from the Marineterrein community and the general public. Have you ever been to the Marineterrein? If so, how do you feel about counting people in public space? In this 1 minute survey we ask 5 simple yes/no questions to help us improve your experience on the smart city campus.

Your help is appreciated!

Wednesday was the official end of the Avondklok curfew in the Netherlands. Since 22 January 2021 the royal Dutch government issued a 9pm curfew to combat the third wave of the corona virus. The AD.nl reports that over these last 3 months, the dutch police have issued more than 95,000 fines for violating curfews.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the DrukteMeter 3 month Avondklok period to see if the Marineterrein community actually adhered to the national curfew.

The data says: yes, we did!

The table in the picture above illustrates that there are little to no people on the Marineterrein between the hours of 9 and 6am. Each night, activity on the Marineterrein stops, or flatlines just before 9pm (and 10pm as of 01 April). These insights tell us that we were all home in time and avoided curfew penalties and fines.

The Marineterrein DrukteMeter (or busyness-meter) anonymously counts the number of people in and around the innovation campus in order to keep the Marineterrein livable - especially during the Corona pandemic. This summer we’ll be using the DrukteMeter to visualize the safe and responsible transition into the New Norm and measuring the post pandemic “PULSE” of Amsterdam most popular destinations.

Meet Meli - A simple app to tackle complicated smart city challenges like congestion, over-tourism and place making. Just point your smart phone in any inner-city location and the Meli app will reveal the story of the many monuments, artifacts or projects around you.

Meli is one of the teams in the AMS Startup Booster Program that focuses on early-stage startups that want to make a business out of solving metropolitan challenges. As one of the Booster mentors, I’ve had the great pleasure to work with Co-Founders Mehdi Brun & Lila Sour to further explore how they could use open-source city data to populate the app for a local Amsterdam case.

Since the Booster program is centrally located on the Marineterrein, we used community driven open data formats to help describe the many projects and experiments going on at Amsterdam’s Inner-city test ground for a sustainable living environment. Watch the project demo here: https://youtu.be/IChZ0OYB1Zg

Meli is one of 7 talented teams who will be pitch their solution at the upcoming Demo Day AMS Startup Booster 01 March @16-18h “Let them show you the endless possibilities for Amsterdam and cities worldwide" Register to attend Today!

The Meli mobile app is available on Android and iOS in 10 languages.