University of Amsterdam (UvA)

Hi everyone!

I'm currently writing my thesis on smart mobility solutions and their (expected) impact in the fight against climate change. As I'm also looking at cooperation between cities, I'd be very grateful if through posting this, I could get answers to the following questions.

- Does Amsterdam cooperate with other cities in the development of smart mobility solutions, like Roboat, Vehicle-2-Grid, or eHubs?

- Do other cities contact Amsterdam for advice and expertise with their smart mobility initiatives?

Thank you all and have a nice week ahead!

Finn

In deze masterclass denken we na en discussiëren over oplossingsrichtingen voor diverse uitdagingen. We proberen we ons een voorstelling te maken van de stad van straks. Geen toekomstvoorspellingen, maar toekomstvoorstellingen.

We gaan o.a. in op de onderwerpen

✓ Wat maakt een stad een stad?
✓ Wat is stedelijkheid?
✓ Hoe ontwikkelen steden zich, groeien ze allemaal?
✓ Bouwen we in of buiten de stad?
✓ Wie wonen er nu in de steden en wie kan er straks nog wonen?
✓ Wat voor werk is er nu in de steden en wat voor werk in de toekomst?
✓ Hoe houden we steden veilig in onzekere tijden?
✓ Is de stad voor de yup en expat of kan Jan Modaal er ook nog terecht?
✓ Is de stad nog de “emancipatiemotor”?
✓ Hoe “smart” wordt de stad?
✓ Mogen auto’s straks nog in de stad?
✓ Hoe krijgen we de stad duurzaam?
✓ Blijft de stad bestuurbaar? Hoe houden we “de boel bij elkaar”?
✓ Welke dynamiek kennen stedelijke netwerken?
✓ Wat gaat dat betekenen voor stedelingen/niet stedelingen?
✓ Oplossingsrichtingen voor de knelpunten met woningmarkt, mobiliteit, duurzaamheid, klimaat, onder controle krijgen van de stedelijke arbeidsmarkt/evenwichtigheid.
✓ Nadenken over / input voor beleidsvorming over stedelijke vraagstukken/regionaal economische vraagstukken (stad voor iedereen - of ga er buiten wonen en regel goed vervoer; woningmarkt voor de middenklasse, etc).

Docenten

De Masterclass De Toekomst van de Stad is onder leiding van dr. Piet Renooy. Verschillende UvA docenten verzorgen een bijdrage in het programma o.a. prof. dr. Pieter Tordoir en dr. Tim Verlaan en diverse gastsprekers, te weten prof. dr. Gert-Jan Hospers, dr. Bas van de Griendt, drs. Josse de Voogd, dr. Jos Gadet, drs. Floor Milikowski en Nik Smit.

Deelnemers ontvangen een certificaat van deelname vanuit de Universiteit van Amsterdam

I am currently conducting research on climate adaptation strategies in London and Amsterdam for the university of Amsterdam. I am approaching this topic from a social justice lens, i.e. understanding how the city is incorporating social justice in its climate adaptation strategies and policies.

I am currently looking for community organisations that are involved in projects that are directly or indirectly involved with tackling the urban heat island effect. This could be projects that seek to increase green spaces, improve how homes perform during heatwaves or even raise awareness on these issues in their community.

Any help is appreciated!

Dear members,

My name is Frank and I am a student at the University of Amsterdam.
At the moment, I am working on my thesis for the bachelor Social Geography and Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam. My research is about the influence of electric cars on urban sprawl. The focus of my research will be on urban sprawl and the increase in automotive mobility and in the increase in efficiency of fuel consumption (both for electric cars and gasoline cars). For this, we have to do some fieldwork and for my thesis I have chosen to do in-depth-interviews.

Are you, or are there in your team people, interested in helping me do my research? Because of the current situation around the corona-virus, the interviews will take place in a different form, for example through Zoom or Skype. These interviews can be conducted in English or Dutch.

Thank you in advance and kind regards,

Frank Hagendoorn
fhagendoorn@live.nl
Student social geography and urban planning at UvA

Dear all,

Data Analytics 2018 has a special session on Smart Cities. I'll probably be going (and presenting). Let me know if you go too. http://www.iaria.org/conferences2018/DATAANALYTICS18.html

The track "Metaheuristics for smart grids and energy systems" in the META'18-conference is off (look closely at the programme). It's still in the glossary, but this appears to be incorrect. https://meta2018.sciencesconf.org

The project Circular Organic Waste in Amsterdam wants to investigate on the potential of separate collection and treatment of organic waste in improving Amsterdam's circularity. To get data on the social perception on this issue from Amsterdam’s inhabitants a questionnaire has been created. If you live in Amsterdam, answer the questionnaire, you will help the research and you will also get the opportunity of winning a prize! It will take less that 5 minutes! You can access the questionnaire through the link below:

Circular Organic Waste in Amsterdam is a thesis project carried out in a collaboration between the UvA Faculty of Science, the Amsterdam Business School and the Van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (Research Priority Area Sustainable Chemistry)The aim of the project is to investigate on the potential of separate organic waste collection and treatment in improving the circularity of Amsterdam. Amsterdam wants to become a sustainable and circular city by 2050 and increase recycling to 65% of waste by 2020 (currently around 27%). In addition, in April 2018, the European Parliament has adopted the revised Waste Framework Directive which declares that all member states shall ensure that biowaste is separately collected by 2023. Therefore it is clear that the separate collection of organic waste represents both an opportunity for the city to get closer to its targets and a necessity.

Currently, organic waste is not separately collected and it is just incinerated with the residual waste. In this way, energy is produced but all the nutrients and organic matter are lost and so all the value. Other treatments, more specific for organic waste, could allow for the recycling of nutrients, the retention of the value and even the upcycling of some materials. However, the introduction of another waste stream separately collected raises organizational, logistic and transportation issues. Therefore, this research aims at analyzing various potential collection solutions that could minimize costs and environmental impact making feasible and convenient the separate collection of organic waste and different possible treatments for this waste stream.

The analysis will be based on interviews, case studies and literatures and will be performed from different perspectives in order to have a systemic vision. Parallelly also the city of Amsterdam and its different sub-environments will be analyzed in order to understand the specific needs, limitation and opportunities of each different area. Combining the results, the most successful case studies that fit best in the characteristics of the city will be selected and integrated in different sustainable business models.

The set of business models proposed will produce an overall strategy for the management of organic waste following the principles of sustainability and circular economy as much as possible.
At the same time, the research will be backed by a social analysis performed through a questionnaire in order to get data on the real perception about this issue among Amsterdam’s inhabitants. The questionnaire will also help to get data on what would be the best instruments to incentivise the separate collection of organic waste and what the biggest barriers to its realisation are.

You can access the questionnaire through this link:

https://goo.gl/forms/8ApXVDSepWmlsyBH2

In 2025 Amsterdam will hopefully be among the top 3 most innovative urban environments. With the help of the innovation platform Amsterdam Smart City, the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area has the ambition to become a smart, healthy and green region. The idea behind a smart city is to make a city liveable by means of open data and mobility solutions. In order to do so, the municipality, companies, knowledge centres but also residents need to work together to achieve the goals.

In 2015, the HvA became a cooperation partner of Amsterdam Smart City. In addition to various research activities, the HvA provides education in the field of Smart City. Fourth-year Business Administration students conduct research projects for organisations that deal with smart city solutions. At the moment, research is being conducted by five project groups:

- Project Cargoroo - One of the studies involved Cargoroo. This company came up with a smart electric carrier cycle (a ‘bakfiets’) with fixed rental stands in every neighbourhood. Fast, clean and suitable for everything. Using this carrier cycle, local residents can utilise a sustainable means of transport to for example take the kids to school. At the same time, awareness on sustainable living is created by this project. Additionally it connects people in neighbourhoods to be more sustainable. Three students from the AUAS together with Cargoroo organized a pilot in Haarlem that started in May 2018. The pilot was a great success and the number of users continues to grow. The bike has now really become a 'thing' in Haarlem-Noord. The next challenge for Cargoroo is to become successful in Amsterdam as well.

- Project LENS-Energie - Herman the sunpower distributor is also represented, a man with a passion for the sun which he prefers to share with everyone. In Amsterdam he moves socially and as a showpiece of the LENS-Energie company he helps the citizen not only save money, but also to transition to sustainable energy. Herman divides the flow of a collective solar panel behind the meter over the connected homes in a residential complex. Only one or a few inverters are required. Now Herman wants to go on vacation, to England and to Mexico. He hopes to share his passion there, but does not know if this is possible. This is what the students of the AUAS are investigating. The Netherlands has become too small for the company that adds value to housing corporations' property through smart solar systems. Although there is still a lot of work to be done in our little country, Herman thinks that he can make a global contribution to the environment.

- Project Amorion - To link students from universities to social projects, the Amorion foundation has been founded. One of the projects is the realization of electric shared cars within the Hope, Love and Fortune housing complex in the Eastern Docklands of Amsterdam. The question was whether the residents of the complex were ready for this concept. After mapping out the potentially interested residents, the students now have to come up with three scenarios about how the shared cars can best be used. For Amorion, it is important to have clear organizational, financial and legal aspects within these scenarios. In this way, the wishes of the interested population and the housing corporation can be properly anticipated.

- Project SEEV4-City - This company investigates how information and communication technologies can be used to structure the energy system in a more sustainable way. One of the pilots is the Amsterdam Arena. The stadium needs a constant energy supply that is equal to that of 270 households. This energy supply is needed for events such as football matches and music concerts. It is not necessary to generate that much energy during normal working days. This is why SEEV4-City tries to find a solution for this. The company wants to reduce the energy demand to an amount that is necessary to maintain daily operations. The extra amount needed (surplus energy) can be generated by, yes, car batteries. In this way, the Amsterdam Arena can run on a massive supply of clean energy generated by used Nissan Leaf batteries. The system will be tested this summer and the students, who are helping to investigate the return of investment, have to wait for the results to determine whether the investment has been valuable.

- Project Circl - Circl is a place that ABN AMRO has created to share the gained knowledge about circularity and to be able to advise customers on this. You experience a circular lifestyle with exhibitions, workshops, lectures, food and entertainment. In addition to meeting rooms and workspaces, there is also a restaurant and rooftop bar. It is an initiative of ABN-AMRO and is intended to promote circular design. Circl is part of Mission 2030, the Dutch government wants all buildings financed by ABN-AMRO to be fully sustainable in 12 years' time. The building serves as a pilot to demonstrate to the outside world that circular business operations can also be successful. The concept is after all less popular than expected. The students of the AUAS have taken on the challenge to create more brand awareness and awareness about sustainability within the Amsterdam region. Only then circular building can be promoted properly.