The role of the storyteller is to translate information into something that humans react to on an personal level. To develop narratives that engage us deeply to help us better understand the world.
For this summer academy project, the team Solar Flora search for an ongoing projects at Amsterdam Smart City platform and found the Rooftop Revolution then we decided to go for the topic Rooftop gardens. We contacted an enthusiast in Amsterdam and created the story.
Idea
Create awareness through storytelling of the benefits of Rooftop gardens to improve peoples health in the urban area, to give opportunities how to reduce energy costs for the buildings and let the people save money as well. How to improve the biodiversity for bees in the urban area and greening the city.
The aim was to create awareness about sustainability issues in the urban areas through storytelling. With the video we wanted to inspire people to take action and understand the connection between people, planet and profit.
Team Solar Flora are five students in the Summer Academy 2017 at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The team representing study areas as Game development, Environmental science and Teaching methods. Students from The Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.
Spread the word, the opportunities is out there!
Work in progress within interdisciplinary international students.
If people find your topic interesting, they are much more likely to agree on being interviewed.
The Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) is one of the European Commission’s largest city support initiatives supporting European cities in their green and digital transitions. ICC delivers knowledge and support services to cities and their local economies to address two major challenges: making the transition to a net-zero economic model, while enabling social inclusion and sustainable development for every EU citizen.
Cities learn how to address these challenges through Local Green Deals: integrated, multi-disciplinary action plans to lead the green and digital transition across sectors from the built environment, urban mobility and renewable energy systems to tourism or small retailers. Cities become members of a vibrant network, gain access to advisory services, innovation and sustainability management techniques, cutting-edge technology and training and get inspiration and advice from peers and mentor cities.
Building on the success of the previous edition of the ICC programme (2020-22) and Digital Cities Challenge (2017-19), the ICC will now enter Phase 2!
Like previous years, Amsterdam has been selected to join the support programme as a mentor city. The city will play a leading support role by guiding the 64 core cities as they embark on their two year journey to create impactful strategies and develop innovative solutions that will place the cities at the forefront of the green and digital twin transition through Local Green Deals. A nice compliment, allowing the Amsterdam Region to share their experiences and learnings from setting up Local Green Deal initiatives over the past years.
On 23 and 24 November 2023, over 200 people - a mix of Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) core and mentor cities, political leaders and representatives from European institutions gathered for the first time in-person to discuss the status quo of Twin Transition. Through examples and best practices, attendees had the honour to hear from over 30 speakers as they shared insights into collaboration methods, Local Green Deals, climate ambitions, digital transitions and more across the course of 20 sessions.
Amsterdam Smart CIty's Leonie van den Beuken travelled to this gathering in Brussels as one of the representatives of the Amsterdam Region. She summarized her trip as follows:
This EU program helps cities from north to south, east and west to connect, share and learn. A much needed interaction, as we all try to improve the quality of life of our citizens. We all struggle with the ever rising cost of living. And we all want to get our cities to become more sustainable.
None of this comes easy, but we all know that local collaboration plays a key role. Building local coalitions between government, businesses and citizens is one thing, but how do we make sure these so called coalitions of the willing actually become coalitions of the doing?
Some of the learnings we shared from the Amsterdam Region are; the need for political support and the importance of trust and respect.
Local political leadership will inspire and guide society and entrepreneurs to invest and contribute. However, make sure pilotical support doesn’t evolve into political ownership. When that happens, societal parties and businesses tend to step out the coalition.
Take the importance of trust and respect seriously. You need to show long term commitment, take time to create understanding between parties. Take competition between participating SME’s serious and define together how to handle this together. Create a workflow in which smaller parties are allowed to participate less intense but sill feel incorporated.
We'll keep you up to date on our participation in future gatherings and results from ICC Phase 2. Want to know more? Check https://www.intelligentcitieschallenge.eu/
Ben je een enthousiaste student die het leuk vindt om teksten te schrijven? Heb je interesse in de regio Amsterdam, technologie of duurzaamheid? En zoek je een stage op het gebied van communicatie en communities? Dan zoeken wij jou!
Amsterdam Smart City is het innovatieplatform dat proactieve bewoners, innovatieve bedrijven, kennisinstellingen en overheden samenbrengt en vorm geeft aan de stad van de toekomst. Samen komen we tot innovatieve oplossingen en maken we betere straten, buurten en steden. Zo zorgen we ervoor dat de Amsterdam Metropoolregio leefbaar blijft voor iedereen. Amsterdam Smart City richt zich op vier thema’s: mobiliteit, de digitale stad, energie en circulaire economie. We werken samen met 20 partners en een internationale community van meer dan 8000 leden. Amsterdam Smart City is een netwerkorganisatie die valt of staat met contact met het netwerk. We brengen mensen op verschillende manieren bij elkaar, o.a. via het platform amsterdamsmartcity.com. Communicatie is één van onze kernactiviteiten, waarbij we jouw hulp nodig hebben!
Wij zijn op zoek naar een community en communicatie stagiair(e)!
Het is mogelijk om al vanaf januari te starten!
Wie ben jij?
Je bent een communicatief sterke student in de richting communicatie / media / marketing / journalistiek met affiniteit voor de thema’s duurzaamheid en/of technologie. Je gelooft in de kracht van teamwork en je enthousiasme en leergierigheid inspireren menigeen. Daarnaast ben je initiatiefrijk en flexibel, kun je zelfstandig werken en makkelijk schakelen. Je kunt overweg met online platforms, vindt het leuk om te schrijven, samen aan de slag te gaan en je netwerk te vergroten. Je vindt het leuk om een community te ondersteunen en te stimuleren tot hoge mate van interactie. Een goede beheersing van de Nederlandse en Engelse taal is een must. Ervaring met Photoshop, Indesign en videobewerking is fijn, maar geen must.
Wat ga je doen tijdens je stage?
Wat bieden wij?
Geïnteresseerd?
Vind je dit allemaal goed klinken? Denk je dat deze stageplek goed bij je past? Stuur dan je CV en een korte motivatie naar info@amsterdamsmartcity.com. Voor meer informatie over de functie kun je bellen met Menouschka Plugge via : 06 43 75 26 36. Hopelijk spreken we elkaar snel!
The primary objective of this research project is to enhance an understanding of the concept of inclusion and its criteria in Smart city discourse. The research ambition is applying the result as a tool for benchmarking inclusive smart cities, which can assess and improve them. To apply the result, we aim to work with cities like Amsterdam, The Hauge, and Rotterdam.
Your project sounds very interesting as well. Unfortunately the only reference I have is the storytelling steps that I got from my teacher that was a summery of different sources. But If you want you can get in contact with her for personal advise and the doc, she lives in Amsterdam. You can found contacts info here: http://www.hva.nl/profiel/s/m/m.smit/m.p.a.smit.html
Some of the reference for that summary comes from: https://www.managementboek.nl/boek/9789462364301/transmedia-storytelling-rene-boonstra
The basic of the process my team use was to search for an interesting project on this amsterdamsmartcity portal (this site) and then contact persons that was involved in it and search for people that they have been in contact with to found some one to interview. After that we made up a interview to get inspired of what kind of stories that was available. We created 3 different kind of stories about our topic "Rooftop gardens". Here we used basic Storytelling steps that you easy can google how to do. It is the same way as when you are filmmaker to do a movie. My team was beginner so we needed to reinforce the story very many times and also test the story on a couple of people to get feedback. Because you as a storyteller understand the story very well but you don´t know if the audience get it. After we decided how to structure the message of the story we did a second interview with the same person as before. There we could have specific questions in that focus that we choose. When we had enough data as video shots and photos we started to structured it and editing it to the final story as you can see in the youtube. We did not use so many editing effects because of the time limits and our previous editing knowledge. We did the "Learning by doing" process.
God luck with the Smart Cities Expedition! When are you gonna start? Are you gonna have any website to share your stories on?
Hi Beatrice,
Thanks for your respons. I am interested in the process preparing, developing and delivery of storytelling. Do you have materials or references for me to understand how your team approach this project? This would very beneficial for the project I am doing.
I started a project called the 'Smart Cities Expedition'. Hereby I will visit 36 cities on 5 continents to collect and share inspiring stories about smart city initiative and their impact on citizens. I do this expedition on a old timer motorbike to connect cities and people.
Hi!
Thanks for your comment and that you took your time. The project purpose was to spread the word and create awareness about sustainable issues through storytelling, so I am open to share the content with you.
What kind of content are you interested in? For example my team focus on different elements when we did the design process for planning the story and combined with design thinking and teambuilding process. The topic itself about Rooftop gardens and the benefits of it tell theirs own story. And then we have the storytellers behind the video our team and the storyteller in the video the students and the activist Leora that we interviewed. And not to forget some mentors from our Universities that coached us when my team was stuck in the process. So many parts.
Hello,
This projects looks very interesting. Is it possible to share of the content with me?
Best Arthur