Amsterdam Smart City Program director on Smart Societies
Program director Leonie van den Beuken joined the SmartCom Summit a few weeks ago to share her thoughts on Smart Societies. We give you a short recap on what came up and added a few interesting insights on the biggest challenges we face working from home and some possible solutions.
Due to the pandemic, we discovered that technology can lead to new opportunities. It also raised a lot of questions on ownership of data, privacy and autonomy. Technology needs not only to be trustworthy, but also to be perceived as trustworthy. Next to that it needs to me available and accessible. Let’s make sure that everyone can have access to hardware, wifi and understandable software. So every kid can join an online class and even older people are able to understand a mobility app.
“Climate change does not wait for us to decide who is in charge”
Used well, technology is an indispensable part of creating sustainable cities. Mobility and energy transitions need the use of data. That way we can create smart grids for example. But who is in charge of creating these smart sustainable societies? ‘A pack of leaders is in charge’, Leonie says. ‘I like to compare it to the Tour de France. In different stages of the race, different cyclists take the lead. All aiming to support the star: sustainable society. And again, trust between parties is the most important thing when working together.’
Smart Communication
Covid has shown that with the support of technology we can meet anywhere online. But technology also comes with difficulties. The biggest challenges for the audience to work from home came out during a poll:
- 62% said ‘Not being around people’
- 24% said ‘Management’
- 100% said ‘Straining our Human Minds’
How can smart communication tools be of help within a company?
During the pandemic, employers manage 100 “offices” instead of one because everyone is working from home. There’s lots of technology available to monitor employees. Even though everyone agreed that trust is always better, camera’s and software to track activities on a device could stimulate and motivate.
Want to know more? Check out the talkshow.
