Tom van Arman

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.

Getting fit and healthy again in 2021? Since the citywide lockdown, members of local sport-clubs have been forced outdoors. One of the most popular (outdoor) fitness areas on the Amsterdam waterfront has been the Marineterrein. In our latest project “Future Fitness Garden” we explore how smart lighting can remind us of safe distancing and capacity in public space during Corona.

Using algorithms we can anonymously detect proximity and density of people working out. For example if they come within 1,5 meters to one another the LED strips turn BLUE. If there are too many people occupying the area the LED will turn RED. This system gently reminds guests to respect each other’s space while sharing the future fitness garden.

Thanks to project partners Marineterrein Amsterdam.  Compliments to AI genius Markus Pfundstein, Electrical Mechanical Wizard Werner Pfundstein

Howdy - this Friday 25.09 @12h we'll be giving a demo to show you MM3D - a new “white board” for city information modeling that can empower you or any other project stakeholders to plan, collaborate & share projects. In this webinar we’ll show you what all these features and functionalities mean for your own real-world projects. We’ll be using the Marineterrein (former navy base) in the heart of Amsterdam as our user case. Interested? Grab a sandwich and sign up here: bit.ly/MM3D_MT

One very exciting smart city initiative we’re working on is called ModelMe3D - a brand new city information modeling platform for future city makers. As a virtual white board, MM3D empowers designers and stakeholders to plan, collaborate & share. Since its entirely web based you can create your first project in seconds, and each scene comes with data rich 3D context of real city locations. Interested? Grab a sandwich and join us Friday 04 September @12:00 for a live demo here: https://bit.ly/MM3D_Webinar

As Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc on public health and local economies around the world, one over-looked Corona casualty has been our collective space. Here in densely populated Amsterdam we are slowly, carefully, cautiously transitioning into a new urban landscape. As a smart city architect and designer, I wanted to start exploring this new 1.5 meter unit on the Marineterrein, Amsterdam’s inner-city testbed for future living environments. Using a computer fan, dental mirror, lego, and yes - a Laser pointer, I set out with my son to visualize what social distancing means on footbridges, fitness gardens, picnic tables, park benches, stairs, swimming docks and familiar Amsterdam furniture. Watch the video and learn how to build your own at https://www.tapp.nl/blog/mapping-social-distance-in-an-inner-city-testbed

Lidar is what robots use to read and navigate our built environment. Also known as point cloud or 3D scanning, Lidar becomes a wonderful 'black canvas' to paint a new portrait of our digital surroundings. We created a point cloud scan animation of the Marineterrein in the heart of Amsterdam that revealed the many data sets being collecting in our living lab. Like Bob Ross, we used the data and points to paint to a new landscape explaining our 21st century city.

Check out how we created this animation here: http://tapp.nl/point-cloud-scan-animation

I'll be giving alking about the point cloud animation and process at the upcoming Sensemakers AMS talk “DigitalTwins - cities, neighborhoods and infra” 19 February 2020. Signup here: http://meetu.ps/e/Hwyjq/8dXgR/a