On Monday 12 september 2016 no less than two French delegations visited Amsterdam Smart City. A group of City Directors coming from all over France and its overseas territories was particularly interested in how Amsterdam Smart City is organised and how it interacts with local and regional governments. Next to that, the interaction with citizens was also a point of interest.
On Monday 12 september 2016 no less than two French delegations visited Amsterdam Smart City. A group of City Directors coming from all over France and its overseas territories was particularly interested in how Amsterdam Smart City is organised and how it interacts with local and regional governments. Next to that, the interaction with citizens was also a point of interest.
We presented the Amsterdam Smart City approach and several examples of bottom-up initiatives. After that, we zoomed in on the EU project City-zen.
We held interesting discussions about the way to involve citizens. In the Amsterdam Smart City projects, generally the so-called early adopters and early majority, try to proof that the applied innovations work. Other parties, like the municipalities themselves, but also business partners, could take up working innovations afterwards. Also intellectual property and cooperation with business partners was discussed. Amsterdam Smart City’s philosophy is to keep everything as open as is reasonably possible, avoiding a technology lock-in at all costs.
After this group, a delegation of the Crédit Agricole Banque from the Haute-Normandie region met Amsterdam Smart City, after visiting among others circular economy living lab De Ceuvel and the Port of Rotterdam. The bankers where interested to see the energy transition and circular economy initiatives in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. The discussions were centered around the role of banks in the replication and upscaling of innovative solutions.
