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The 20th episode of the Better Cities - The contribution of digital technology-series is about electrification, as part of climate adaptation. Based on this theme, both the role of digital technology and the relationship between digital and social innovation will be illustrated.

The Dutch government has dug deep into its pockets to get citizens and companies to cover their roofs with solar panels and to encourage the construction of solar meadows. Favorable tax facilities have been created and a generous so-called ‘salderingsregeling’ has been set up, and with success.

Solar energy and grid overload

Most citizens are very satisfied with solar panels and their impact on the energy bill. So far, no audit office has checked what the government pays for a kilowatt hour of electricity that citizens produce on their roofs. This includes the costs of the aforementioned (tax) facilities and subsidies, as well as the billions in investments in grid reinforcement resulting from the large-scale (re)delivery to the grid of decentral generated energy. In fact, when there is more supply than demand for electricity on the grid, the wholesale price of electricity is negative. In that case, thanks to the ‘salderingsregeling’, the electricity company pays back the full amount and also has to pay(!) companies that buy electricity at that time!

And now? Now the government suffers the consequences and is limiting the growth in the number of solar panels. Many requests for the large-scale generation of solar energy are waiting for a license because the electricity grid in large parts of the Netherlands is overloaded.

There are three ways to solve this problem. The first is to increase the capacity of the high-voltage grid. The second is large-scale storage of electricity, both for the short and the long term. The third is network management. The least elegant solution here is curtailment which means that the capacity of all solar meadows and wind farms is only used for 70%. A better alternative is the construction of smart grids; this is what this article is about. Smart grids have more to do with digitization than with extra cables. *A smart grid is an energy system in which PV panels, electric cars, heat pumps, household appliances, large but also small-scale storage systems and substations are intelligently connected.*However, more attention to energy storage is desperately needed too and high-voltage grid reinforcement will also be inevitable locally.

From centralized to decentralized electricity supply

Electricity infrastructure around the world is designed for centralized electricity generation, characterized by one-way traffic from producer to consumer. Now that many consumers have also become producers ('prosumers') and solar meadows and wind farms are being developed in many places in addition to the usual power plants, the network structure of the future must be decentralized. It will consist of two or three levels. Together, these will ensure a stable system in which much more electricity is used than today. This new structure is at the forefront of development. In 2016, approximately $47 billion was spent worldwide on infrastructure and software to make the electricity system more flexible, integrate renewable energy and better serve customers. The book Promoting Digital Innovations to Advance Clean Energy System (2018) is an excellent overview of these developments. This book can here be downloaded for free.

Most prosumers supply an average of 65% of the generated electricity back to the main grid. Own storage capacity is part of the solution and creates a mini grid that significantly reduces the need to supply back. Otherwise, there are times when the main grid benefits from supplying back locally generated power. Therefore, the next step is for main and mini grids to communicate with each other. In this case we speak of a smart grid: The management of energy production in large-scale power stations (including wind and solar parks) will then take place in conjunction with the regulation of the inflow and outflow of electricity from the main grid to the mini grids. This may also include signals to households to charge or discharge batteries, turn on the boiler, postpone charging the car or stop the production of energy. An automated monitoring and control system is a necessary enabler here.

The exchange of data between mini grids and the main grid has many privacy aspects, especially if the grid operator can influence what goes on 'behind the meter'. An intermediate layer between main and mini grids offers a solution. We then speak of a microgrid. This is a kind of switch between the main grid and the micro grid, that enables the micro grid even to function autonomously in the event of a failure of the main grid.

A microgrid contains three elements:

1. Installation(s) for local energy production for more than one user (usually a neighborhood): solar panels, wind turbines, cogeneration, heat pump(s), biomass power station, hydropower turbine and possibly an emergency production system (generator).

2. A storage system: home and neighborhood batteries and in the future also supercapacitors and chemical latent heat storage.

3. A digital management system to guarantee the balance between the production of and the demand for electricity, to determine how much energy is taken from or returned to the main grid and which calculates the costs and benefits per household.

The micro-grid

In a micro grid, households can exchange their surpluses and shortages of electricity without the direct intervention of the grid operator or the electricity producers. These are solely related to the surpluses and deficits of the entire microgrid, eliminating the need to interfere in the mini grids of individual households. Thanks to the real-time monitoring of electricity production and consumption, the price of electricity can be determined minute by minute. For example, the households that are part of the microgrid can agree to purchase as much electricity as possible when the price is low. At such moments, home batteries, electric cars, any neighborhood battery and boilers and hot water barrels will be charged and heated. This can be done fully automated. For example, the Powermatcher, an open-source application developed by TNO, which now employs 1000 people in the Netherlands. This video illustrates how a microgrid works.

A microgrid gains extra value if the users form an energy cooperative. Here it is possible to decide about the algorithms that regulate the circulation of the current in the microgrid. A cooperative can also take care of the management and maintenance of the solar panels of other collective facilities such as a neighborhood battery, local energy sources (wind or solar park or geothermal heat). The cooperative is also a good means of negotiating with the network operator and the energy company.

The virtual power plant

By linking heat pump technology, energy generation and energy storage at the district level, a significant step can be made with the energy transition. Here are some examples.

The Amsterdam virtual power plant
An almost classic example of a microgrid is the Amsterdam virtual power plant. Here, 50 households produce electricity with solar panels, store it in-house and trade it according to availability when the price on the energy market is most favorable.

Future Living Berlin
This is a nice small-scale practical example developed by Panasonic. Future Living Berlin consists of a neighborhood with apartment buildings for a total of 90 households. The residential buildings are equipped with 600 solar panels that, together with a collective battery system, provide a constant flow of sustainable energy. Among others, to power the seventeen central air/water heat pumps, of which two to five per residential building are installed in a cascade and provide heating and hot tap water. The shared cars and communal washing machines are good for the environment, and they also promote neighborly contact. The Internet of Things also plays a role in controlling the heat pumps. Installers maintain remote access to these systems via a cloud platform.

Tesla's Virtual Power Plant
Tesla has built a virtual power plant in Australia for 50,000 households. Every household has solar panels, with a capacity of 5 kilowatts and a Tesla Powerwall battery of 13.5 kilowatt-hours. As a result, the power station has a capacity of 250 megawatts and a storage capacity of 675 megawatt-hours. Here too, every household charges the battery and possibly the car with self-generated energy and with cheap energy if the supply is large, and they supply the energy they have left to the electricity companies at the market price. In this way the participants save 20% of the annual energy costs.

The ultimate step: autarky
Companies that want to use solar panels and supply the surplus of energy back to the grid are also increasingly encountering the capacity limitations of the main grid. The result is that an increasing number of businesses take power supply into their own hands and even completely refraining from being connected to the grid. Commercial solutions for local virtual power grids are now available, for which companies such as Alfen and Joulz are involved. One of the options is Energy-as-a-service, where the business customer does not invest in an installation but pay a fixed amount per month.

The use of blockchain

Blockchain enables exchanging surplus energy between prosumers without human intervention. Brooklyn Microgrid is a 'benefit corporation', to which every resident who has solar panels can connect and buy energy directly from or sell energy to another user (P2P), without the intervention of the electricity company. Blockchain provides a secure, transparent, and decentralized ledger of all energy production and consumption data and transactions based on 'smart contracts'. These are self-executing programs that automate the exchange of value (here, the amount of electricity) on bilaterally agreed terms. Home and neighborhood batteries, individual and collective heat pumps and charging stations for cars can also be connected to this system.

A similar pilot with blockchain is taking place in the southern German town of Wilpoldsried. Project partners Siemens, grid operator AllgäuNetz, Kempten University of Applied Sciences and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT) have jointly developed the platform and an app, considering the given load capacity of the grid.

Digital twins: need for oversight

Smart grids, ranging from local mini and micro grids to regional applications, are a substantial alternative to grid reinforcement. At the same time, they create new electricity flows, especially where there is a direct exchange between smart grids and the main grid. That is why there is a growing need to map these flows and regulate them where necessary. Digital twins can be helpful here.

Delft University of Technology has developed a small digital twin for a quarter of the Dutch high-voltage grid. This will gradually be expanded to encompass the entire network. To this end, the existing high-voltage hall of TU Delft will be converted into an Electrical Sustainable Power Lab, which will mirror the electricity network, including high-voltage pylons, sources of wind and solar energy, energy storage and distribution networks. This allows, for example, to simulate the effect of linking a new wind farm. As a result, it provides an overview of all bottlenecks and thus lays the foundation for better network management or the choice for grid reinforcement.

But there are also many promising developments at the local level. For that we must be in the US for the time being. The Cityzenith company, together with Arizona State University, has developed the SmartWorldOS digital twin and is making it available to Phoenix, Las Vegas and New York. Each of these cities is building a digital twin of a part of the center. The twins comprise all the buildings, transportation systems and infrastructure of the affected areas and are powered by sensors sent over a 5G network. They aggregate 3D (space) and 4D (time) data about the actual energy use and visualize and analyze it. Subsequently, the impact of other forms of lighting, heating, but also electricity generation with solar panels on the roof, on the facades and in the windows can be simulated and measured and a decision can be made about their implementation.

I have compiled a dossier on many aspects of the use of solar energy. This dossier deepens this article in several respects. Innovations in solar panels, the use of window glass to generate energy, the growth of solar energy in the Netherlands and the storage of electricity are discussed. Those who are interested can find this file by following the link below.

In the 13th episode of the Better cities -The contribution of digital technology-series I will continue the description of applications of digital technology and their evaluation based on relevant ethical principles treated in episode 9. Episode 12 discussed: (1) Internet of Things, (2) robotics, and (3) biometrics. Below, I will cover (4) Immersive technology (augmented and virtual reality), (5) blockchain and (6) platforms. By way of conclusion, I return to the implications of all these applications for governance.
The ethical principles mentioned in chapter 9 are: privacy, autonomy, security, control, human dignity, justice, and power relations.

4. Immersive technology (augmented and virtual reality)

Augmented reality adds information to our perception. The oldest examples are messages that pilots of super-fast fighter planes could read on their glasses, so that they eyes without interruption could follow their "target". Its most popular application is the game Pokémon Go. Additional information via the smartphone screen is also often available when visiting 'places of interest'. The infamous Google Glasses were an excellent tool for this purpose but due to the obvious risk of privacy violations their application soon came to an end. This is unfortunate for certain groups, for example the hearing impaired.
Virtual reality goes much further by replacing our sensory perception by images of an artificial world. This requires a special helmet, such as the oculus rift. Applications mainly find their way through gaming. But it is also possible to show the interior of a house in three dimensions or to take a virtual walk through a neighborhood that is yet to be built.

A primitive form of virtual reality was Second live, in which the screen gave access to an alternative reality, in which your avatar communicates with others’. That could go a long way, like someone who reported being raped by a fellow avatar. Nowadays, the capabilities of augmented reality are expanding rapidly. Think of a virtual space where the user meets others to converse, listen, or to do whatever.

Metaverse
Augmented reality takes you to the metaverse, which was first described by Neil Stephenson in his dystopian book Snow Crash in 1992. As the power of computers grew, the idea of the metaverse gained new impetus and recently Marc Zuckerberg announced that his new company Meta Platforms will gradually turn Facebook into a fully digital world. This immerses the users in the most diverse experiences, which they partly evoke themselves, such as communicating with other avatars, attending a concert, going to the disco, and getting acquainted with strangers and of course going to shops, because it remains a medium to make money.
Only recently, Microsoft has also announced that it would bring its operating system (Windows), web servers (Azure), communication networks (Teams and Linkedin) hardware (HoloLens), entertainment (Xbox) and IP (Minecraft) together in a virtual reality. The recent €60 billion-acquisition of game producer Activision Blizzard, producer of the Call of Duty video games, fits in with this policy and indicates that the company expects to make a lot of money with its version of the metaverse.
In the expected struggle between the titans, Amazon will probably join in and build the virtual mall of and for everyone's dreams.

It remains to be seen whether a younger generation, less consumer-addicted and more concerned about nature, is waiting for a completely artificial world. I hope not.

Privacy
The risks of augmented reality have been widely mentioned from the start. For example, for research purposes, Google had been given the right to remotely track the movements of the eyes of people wearing Google glasses. For the rest, it is not only governments and companies that will spy on people, but above all people will spy on each other.

Safety
After a short time, those who move through the metaverse develop balance problems. Worse is that the risk of addiction is high.

Human dignity
There is a danger that people who frequently dwell in imaginary worlds can no longer distinguish fake and real and alienate from themselves in the 'real' world and lose the social skills that are necessary in it.

Power relations
Big Tech is getting even more tools to analyze our preferences and influence us, including through deep fakes, which can imitate existing people in real life. This raises questions about the risks that citizens run, and about the even greater role of companies that offer immersive technology.

5. Blockchain

Blockchain makes it possible to record transactions (of money, securities, contracts, and objects) without the mediation of an authorized body (government, employer, bank, notary). The first version of blockchain was bitcoin, initially only intended for financial transactions. Today, there are hundreds of variants, of which Ethereum is the most widely used.
The essence of blockchain is that the database of all transactions, the ledger, is stored on everyone's computer and is therefore accessible to every user. Miners ensure that a cryptocurrency is only used for one transaction or that a contract is not changed afterwards by one of the parties involved. Once most miners have approved a series of transactions, these transactions together form an unchangeable block.
Miners are eager to approve blocks, because whoever turns out to have done so first will receive a significant fee in cryptocurrency. Mining takes time and, above all, requires a huge amount of computing power and therefore energy. Alternative methods are diligently sought, such as a method that mainly concerns the reputation of the miner.

Blockchain stems from a drive for radical decentralization and reduction of the power of states, banks, and companies. That has worked out differently in practice. It is mainly governments and large companies in the US, Russia, China, South Korea, and the Netherlands, for example Albert Heijn, that are ensuring a steady increase.

As a means of securely storing transactions and recording mutual obligations, as in the case of digital autonomous organizations and smart contacts, blockchain has more potential than as a cryptocurrency. An absolute precondition is finding an alternative for the high consumption of energy.

Privacy
Blockchain grew out of the pursuit of escaping the ubiquitous eavesdropping enterprises and state. That is why dubious transactions are preferably handled with cryptocurrency. There is no complete anonymity, because cryptocurrency must be regularly exchanged for official money,

Autonomy
Perhaps more human autonomy comes into its own in blockchain than in any other system. For this it is necessary to know how it works well. This is all the truer in the case of non-financial transactions.

Safety
There are certain risks: The moment a miner has more than 50% of the computer capacity, it can completely corrupt the system. This situation is not imaginary. In 2019, there were two Chinese miners who together owned more than the half of computer capacity.

Power relations
Not much is known about the position of miners. There is a tendency towards ever-increasing concentration, which carries dangers about the sustainability of the system. As concentration increases, cryptocurrency holdings will also become increasingly skewed. After all, it is the miners who ensure the expansion of the available amount of money.

6. Digital platforms

Companies such as Amazon, Uber and Airbnb represent a new form of economic activity that has far-reaching consequences for other companies and urban life. They essentially consist of digital platforms that bring providers and consumers together.

Imagine you are in Amazon's virtual fitting room. You sit on a chair and a series of models pass by all of which exactly have your figure and size and maybe also your appearance. You can vary endlessly what they are wearing, until you have found or put together the outfit of your dreams. This can apply to all conceivable purchases, up to cars, including a driving simulator. With the push of a button, it is ordered and a few hours later the drone drops your order at your doorstep.
Digital platforms bring together a range of digital technology applications, such as Internet of Things, robotics, immersive technology, artificial intelligence and blockchain, to monitor the immense flows of goods and services.

Privacy
In the world of platforms, privacy is of little or no importance. Companies want to earn as much as possible from you and therefore collect masses of information about your behavior, preferences, and expenses. This in exchange for convenience and free gadgets such as navigation, search engines and email.

Autonomy
Some platforms are part of the sharing economy. They enable direct transactions between people and, as in the case of Airbnb, provide an unprecedented range of accommodations from which to choose.

Justice
Employees in platform companies often have poor labor conditions. For example, Uber drivers are followed, checked, and assessed all day long. In distribution centers, all remaining human actions are prescribed down to the minute.
In these companies, a large gap arises between the small inner circle of managers and technicians and the large outer circle of "contractors" that the company has nothing to do with and who have nothing to do with the company.

Power relations
These companies also contribute to widening the gap between rich and poor; the unprecedentedly large earnings go to top management and shareholders and, where possible, tax is avoided.
Platforms like Airbnb make it possible to distort competition on a large scale; the accommodations they rent out do not comply with the safety and tax rules that apply to regular companies.
The growth of platforms that have taken on monopolistic forms is the major cause of urban disruption without contributing to the costs it entails for the community.

Back to governance

In the previous articles, I have elaborated a framework for dealing with digitization in a socially responsible manner. Two lines of thought developed in this, that of the value of digital technology and that of its ethical use.

The value of digital technology
Digital technology must be given shape and content as one of the tools with which a city works towards an ecologically and socially sustainable future. To help articulate what such a future means, I introduced Kate Raworth's ideas about the donut economy. The design of a vision of the future must be a broadly supported democratic process, in which citizens also test the solution of their inclining problems against the sustainable prosperity of future generations and that of people elsewhere in the world.
The most important question when it comes to (digital) technology is therefore which (digital) technological tools contribute to the realization of a socially and ecologically sustainable city?

The ethical use of technology
In the world in which we try to realize the sustainable city of the future, digital technology is developing rapidly, in the fort place under the influence of commercial and political interests. Cities are confronted with these technologies through powerful smart city technology marketing.
The most important question for cities to ask is How do we assess available technologies from an ethical perspective.

In the government of cities, both trains of thought come together: Together, the answers to these questions can lead to the choice, design, and application of digital techniques as part of the realization of a vision for an ecologically and socially sustainable future of the city.

In the next two articles I examine how ethical principles are dealt with in practice. In the first article I will put Amsterdam in the spotlight and next, I look at how several municipalities are digitizing responsibly in the context of the Agenda stad.

The link below opens an overview of all published and future articles in this series.

Distributed Ledger Technologies have a lot of potential "as a visible tool that improves the lives of citizens and their communities" and the focus should be on the concrete problems that the public sector faces in delivering services to citizens

“You’re going to have to say, it improves mobility, it improves the fight against climate change, affordable housing, a better city, better participation. It’s not going to be about DLTs.” - Francesca Bria, president of the Italian National Innovation Fund

Metabolic concluded the DLT4EU program in May with the goal to drive innovation in the public sector by connecting the expertise of top-notch entrepreneurs with real-world problems, to create new solutions.

Learn more from the link below.

e-Estonia is currently the most ambitious project in technology-assisted policymaking in the world. It includes anybody involved with government and it has changed the daily life of citizens. Almost all public services are involved: Legislation, voting, education, justice, health care, banking, taxes, and police. These are digitally linked to each other via one platform. Only for marriages, divorces and real-estate transactions, a visit to the town hall is mandatory.

The country’s ICT-infrastructure has been developed by government, along with a few Estonian companies. The state has been the driving force behind this project and has attracted the best specialists of the country. Below, I mention some of the features of the project.

Infrastructure

Estonia has developed an ICT-infrastructure – the Government Cloud - that all government agencies and most companies use. This makes possible almost perfect interoperability in accordance with the highest level of IT Security Standards (ISKE).
To be protected against external cyberattacks, such as in 2007, there is a full back-up. This is in a datacenter in Luxemburg, which has an internationally accepted status as ‘embassy’.  It works under Estonian state control and can take over the most critical services seamlessly.

Data protection

Data is not stored centrally. Instead, the government data platform, X-Road, connects individual servers via end-to-end encrypted pathways. In the Estonian system any individual owns all information that is recorded about him or herand any use that is made of it is recorded.
This video explains how X-road works.

 The backbone of Estonia’s digital security is a blockchain technology called KSI. It is designed in Estonia and applied worldwide today.  It guarantees complete privacy and excludes anyone from manipulating the data. KSI blockchain technology documents all actions in the system and protects information without access to the information itself.
The technology has been developed together with Guardtime, a company founded in 2007 in Estonia, that has exporting the system globally and therefore has offices around the world.

The Dutch Judicial Information Service (Justitiële Informatiedienst) has chosen Guardtime’s KSI Blockchain technology for integrity assurance of new e-services. The blockchain integration ensures transparency, verifiability and security of the information that is processed in government systems.

Voting

Whereas most technology advanced countries still let people vote with pen and paper or use primitive voting machines, from 2007 Estonia applies e-voting for parliament election and elections at municipal level.
With e-Voting, voters can cast their vote from any computer with an internet connection anywhere in the world: During a designated period, voters log in to the system with an ID-card or Mobile-ID, and cast a ballot. To ensure anonymity, the voter’s identity is removed from the ballot before it reaches the National Electoral Commission, which counts the votes. Every system of remote voting, including traditional ballot papers sent by post, risks buying or enforcing someone’s vote. Estonia’s solution is the possibility to change his or her vote later with only the last vote counting.

Streamlining decision-making

Governmental bodies at all levels use a paperless information system – e-cabinet – that has streamlined decision making and reduced the time spent on meetings with 80%. Well before the start of a meeting, participants view the agenda items and determine their opinion. If they have objections or want to discuss the subject, they click on a box. The opinions of all participants are therefore known in advance. If there are no objections, decisions are taken without debate.
This video below demonstrates the operation of e-cabinet.

Residency program

Like many other European states, the population of Estonia is shrinking. Increasing the number of babies is complicated, so a digital residency program was launched in 2014, in style with the Estonian e-government project. Any foreigner can become Estonian resident without ever visiting the country and can participate in Estonian services, such as banking. Estonia has liberal rules for technological research and the lowest corporate tax rates in the European Union.
About 28.000 people have applied for an e-residency, including many owners of small businesses from the United Kingdom who want to be based in the EU.

The footing of e-Estonia is – according to the government – to facilitate and improve the life of citizens and to make the government more efficient. This goal certainly has been achieved. The total amount of savings is calculated at 2% of GNP.

Technology can play a role in improving the quality of the formal organization, decision making, the provision of services and the relationship with all stakeholders. In this context, concepts such as e-government (digital government) and e-governance are often used. Estonia offers a great example of e-government. For e-governance - the mutual communication between municipal authorities and citizens using digital tools - we better take Spain as an example, as I will explain in a next post.

I will regularly share with you ‘snapshots’ of the challenge to bring social and ecological sustainable cities closer using technology - if helpful. These posts represent findings, updates, and supplements of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free below.

Researchers Sultan Cetin (TU Delft), Catherine De Wolf (ETH Zurich) and Nancy Bocken (Maastricht University), have developed a novel framework combining Circular Economy principles and life cycle stages of buildings, and mapped ten potentially enabling digital technologies.

These include:

1. Additive/robotic manufacturing;
2. Artificial intelligence;
3. Big data and analytics;
4. Blockchain technology;
5. Building information modelling;
6. Digital platforms/marketplaces;
7. Digital twins;
8. The geographical information system;
9. Material passports/databanks;
10. The internet of things.

Their framework can be used to create roadmaps or map your value network in your circular operations.
You can access their article freely.

“Voorheen werd er gewoon rondgebeld: ‘Wij zitten in de instroom van de ArenA. We hebben nu 20.000 man binnen. Hoe gaat het bij jullie op straat?’” In de achtste aflevering van de serie A Radical Redesign for Amsterdam, spreken Carin ten Hage en Geert Kloppenburg met Maurits van Hövell (Johan Cruijff ArenA). Hoe houdt je een wijk met de drie grootste evenementenlocaties van het land, bereikbaar en veilig? Ze spreken elkaar in het Operationeel Mobiliteitscentrum over de rol van de stad Amsterdam, data delen en het houden van regie. A Radical Redesign for Amsterdam wordt gemaakt in opdracht van de Gemeente Amsterdam.

Luister de podcast hier: http://bit.ly/mvhovell

How can Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) and Blockchain contribute to a more transparent, sustainable and inclusive future?

As we launch the DLT4EU programme, we are having a panel discussion on the potential role and pitfalls of DLT in Europe. In the panel Indy Johar from Dark Matter Labs will join Piret Tõnurist, Innovation Lead at OECD - OCDE, and Ludovic Courcelas, Government Strategy Lead at ConsenSys. Together they will discuss how DLT and blockchain can encourage a more circular and democratic society.

Join us for this public online event on September 17th from 6pm CET.

More info on the DLT4EU programme: https://www.metabolic.nl/projects/dlt4eu/

Artificial Intelligence (AI) en blockchain zijn geavanceerde technologieën die al enige tijd sterk in de belangstelling staan. Het worden langzamerhand belangrijke bouwstenen in tal van omvangrijke en complexe projecten, zoals smart cities. Marloes Pomp, internationaal bekend expert op het gebied van AI en blockchain, spreekt met Vincent van Mierlo, strategisch accountmanager bij Eurofiber Nederland, over deze twee technologieën en de behoefte aan solide digitale infrastructuur.

'The early focus on contact tracing apps for covid-19 was understandable: a vaccine is still many months away, assuming we can even find one that will work. Apps stepped into the breach as a potential panacea—even though many insiders have consistently argued that they are only one of a number of tools we have to fight the virus.'

And are they working? Will people use it? The article shows that France and Australia have some struggles in making the technology work while also trying to get people adopt the app. Eventually, technology will work. Success is however dependent on the willingness of usage by the people.

Join the discussion!
Are you interested in the Dutch plans for a covid-19 contact tracing app? What kind of ideas do they have to enthuse people to use the CoronaMelder? Or would you like to know how other cities and countries convinced people to use such technology? Join us on the 3rd of September 2020 in an online session! More info: https://amsterdamsmartcity.com/events/how-to-get-people-to-actually-use-contact-tracing

Calling for smart health companies with international ambitions! The internationalisation program ‘The Globaliser’, with a special focus on smart health companies (startups, scale-ups and SME’s), starts in the Amsterdam region in October. During this 10 week program, companies will work on their internationalisation strategy. The program, put together with experienced entrepreneurs, contains the most valuable lessons learned, individual coaching, expert views, interactive sessions and utilizes useful tools for market selection, building the Go-to-Market strategy and the international roadmap. Afterwards, participants will have a validated international roadmap, which gives focus and helps you to roll out your smart health solution internationally. Do you want to know more? Get in contact with Ellen van der Vossen, (e.vossen@amsterdam.nl) or Daan Donkers (d.donkers@amsterdam.nl), who are trade developers for Amsterdam Trade and Innovate.

For more information about the Globaliser, check out https://www.dutchbasecamp.org/globaliser!

In februari geven we met Board Insights een podium aan diverse Living Labs binnen de regio.

In deel 1 spreken we met Chandar van der Zande, die nauw betrokken was bij De Ceuvel. Één van de meest duurzame en vernieuwende experimenten in Europa.

“De Ceuvel 2.0 was het meest innovatieve stukje van Amsterdam, 3.0 moet dat ook weer worden. Alleen dan groter en beter. En dat is hard nodig want we hebben nog maar tien jaar om de oplossingen voor een nieuwe economie te bedenken, te toetsen en op te schalen om de klimaatcrisis het hoofd te bieden.”

Enter the competition and win up to 750,000 euro in co-financing for your idea for an open, trusted and fair market for data sharing. A market that is scalable and broadly applicable and that allows parties in the Amsterdam area to work on a smart, green and healthy region.

Are you an organization that is familiar with digital technology and do you know how to use your knowledge for a smart, green and healthy region? Register for this competition!

How do we turn the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area into a Blockchain hub? That is what the Amsterdam Economic Board is researching together with the City of Amsterdam and StartupAmsterdam through a series of 6 meetups. Because Blockchain could be an important part of the solutions for the six urban challenges of our metropolis. The first meeting tried to find an answer to the question: “How do we ensure more adoption of Blockchain technology now that the hype seems to be over?

Read the full article by clicking the link

We are living in an era that is witnessing the traditional cities turning into ‘smart cities’ with the technology penetrating at abnormal speeds. As we are moving closer to the beginning of a new year, there is a bubbling curiosity in the air about the technologies that will push the current advancements to further progress – continuing the transformative change.

In 2018, the tech world in the smart cities observed the development and gradual penetration of technologies like IoT, AI, Cloud computing, and of course Blockchain. Now, in 2019 the same technologies will surface as integrative technologies. They are set to play a more powerful role aiming at disrupting the marketplace while remodelling the consumer tech reality.

We look into the top 3 breakthroughs and hope that these will not just bring the latest state-of-the-art infrastructure in smart cities but also make them more secure, sustainable, and happening places to live in.