#Sensors

2 great speakers at Sensemakers'monthly meetup;

- Armando Lucrecio (Sr. TechnIcal Program Manager @Amazon) on indoor and outdoor asset tracking;
- Aris Witteborg (Leading Professional Digital Smart Water at Royal HaskoningDHV Digital) on Digital Twins

When the market couldn’t offer what Amsterdam needed, the city created its own technology solution in-house. This approach gives cities more control and can also help vendors build better products.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands (and virtually) October 6-7

Cities have increasingly been collecting and analyzing data generated from sensors in public space. This conference will explore how data collecting capabilities and uses are made available (and understandable) to the general public.

AMS Institute’s Responsible Sensing Lab and the NWO funded research group BRIDE (BRIdging Data in the built Environment) are coming together to co-host a conference on data transparency in public space.

Scholars, legal experts, city planners, citizens, data scientists, and students will come together to better understand:

1. The global legal status of data transparency in public space
2. How data transparency works in practice
3. Prototypes and ideas for the future based on the needs of the general public and corporate/governmental stakeholders.

Interested in attending?
Get your tickets at: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/data-transparency-in-public-space-tickets-166607410249

Keynote speakers

Beryl Dreijer - Amsterdam Privacy Officer

Alec Shuldiner - Autodesk Data Ethics Lead

Thijs Turèl - AMS Program Manager Responsible Urban Digitalization

Workshops

Planned workshops and times. Scheduling is still subject to change. It is possible to attend multiple workshops.

Digital Trust for Places and Routines (DTPR) - Enabling greater transparency and civic dialogue on the use of digital technologies in the built environment. October 6, afternoon

Discover the smart sensors of Amsterdam - and beyond, when joining virtually. October 6, afternoon

Over the wall designing - Explore what smart objects mean to different groups of people through completing a design process from different perspectives. October 7, afternoon

For more information about the speakers and workshops go to:
www.utwente.nl/en/bms/bride/DTPS2021/

In September the Sensemakers Community celebrates her 10th anniversary. Due to Covid not with an offline party, but online with speakers that will give an overview of (the learnings from) the changing landscape and a speculative look into the future!

De slimme stad, wat is dat eigenlijk? Kan iets dat geen hersenen heeft slim zijn? Waag gaat er vanuit dat niet de stad, maar de burger slim is: smart citizens in plaats van smart cities. Vanaf 23 augustus kun je met het wandelpakket van Waag de smart citizen-wandeling lopen in Utrecht, Rotterdam en Amsterdam. Wandel de stadsroute en ga mee op zoek naar de sporen van de slimme stad!

Meld je aan om het wandelpakket te ontvangen. De wandeling is corona-proof en te doen wanneer het jou uitkomt.

The AMS Startup Βooster is an idea validation program focusing on the creation of startups that want to make an impact on city life and solve metropolitan challenges.

Do you have, or know someone who has, a great idea on urban challenges and want(s) to fast-track it to the next level? Then join our team of sustainability experts and business enthusiasts and we will help you boost your idea into a business.

Open for applications until August 29
The application form will remain open until August 29. The first week of September, we will select our top teams to join our program and coaching sessions.

September 2021 – December 2021
The program consists of six sessions, accompanied by peer-to-peer discussions and coaching sessions. All sessions will take place on Monday afternoons. We aim to bring the start-ups to the level where they have eliminated uncertainties, done a thorough customer discovery, formed a strong team and can venture out with a solid pitch and a minimum viable product. The sessions will be primarily online due to the uncertainty of COVID19, but when possible we will also have some live sessions at our institute in Amsterdam.

Note from ASC: Have a question? Let’s hear it in the comments.

We are currently looking for a lot of new colleagues, in various departments:

• Energy Control Systems Developer
  - Senior Software Developer
  - Software Developer
• Technical Project Manager
• Smart Energy Consultant
• Front-End Developer
• New Business Development Manager
• Embedded Systems Engineer
• Finance & Admin Support
• Marketing Intern
• Software Team Lead for our Smart Building Platform
• Software Developer for our Data Platform

Come join our growing international team and help us make the world more sustainable while having fun!

Are you a Living Lab Practitioner or Researcher and wondering about the impact of living labs? Join the ULL Summit on June 22nd!

The third edition of the Urban Living Lab Summit brings together living lab practitioners and researchers worldwide to work together on learning and co-creating with living labs. The leading question will be: ‘How to measure and make impact with urban living labs?' You can simply register to join and participate!

When: On June 22nd from 14-18 CEST
Where: Online
Price: Your time and Brain power (no costs)

The ULL Summit is an initiave from the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) but open to contributions from all!

Are you wondering how to create a digital twin for your factory? How do we bring our industrial assets to digital life from the physical one?

Digital Twins are intended to transform large industrial processes. They are a disruptive technology that assures the (R)evolution of the industry and will be essential for 4.0 factories.

Gartner predicted that this year, half of the largest industrial companies would join digital twins technologies, that is, they will increase their productivity by 10%.

Will your factory be one of them?

The City Innovation Exchange Lab (CITIXL) has been working with the City of Amsterdam on the Responsible Sensing Toolkit (RST) and we are looking for partners to test the six-step process in a  free workshop to identify and navigate dilemmas related to sensing projects in public spaces.  If you are a city innovator and want to make your sensing project more inclusive and ethical,  sign up for a free one-hour workshop and start the journey to Responsible Sensing in your city.

The first workshop is free and only takes an hour using the Decision Canvas to stimulate a productive dialogue about the various dilemmas you may need to consider for your sensing project.  After this initial quick-scan, there are two more workshops we have designed to identify attention points in workshop 2 to transform into action points in the 3rd roadmapping workshop.

You and your partners can use the Responsible Sensing Toolkit to effectively navigate a path to a more inclusive and responsible approach that will generate positive social impact for your sensing project.

For more information, please visit the RST workshop signup page http://www.citixl.com/workshop-signup/

During this webinar the mysteries of the sewers will be unraveled. Analysing wastewater provides unique insights into public health, medicine use, pollution and many more topics.

When: June 1, 10:00-11:00 CEST (GMT+2)
Where: Online
Cost: It is a free event
Language: English

The focus of the webinar will be on: Decrypting wastewater information. The main question is: How can sewer sociology and wastewater epidemiology contribute to a better management of cities? This will be answered by experts from the city of Barcelona.

Central to this webinar are:
💧 The problems the municipality encounters;
💧 the solution offered through the SCOREwater project;
💧 how to make use of the gathered data for better city management.

Read more and sign up here

During this Sensemakers meetup Marc van Andel (Kadaster) will talk about the challenges of the National Sensor Registry that is being realized for the Netherlands. And Manon den Dunnen will share the latest insights on synthetic media. Experts believe that in a few years, 90% of the online content will be synthetic. What are the opportunities for organisations, and how about threats like deepfakes?

Do you represent a scale-up with a proven solution for #manufacturing and #logistics? Are you looking to successfully conquer the German market and want introductions to Mittelstand companies?

We are proud to launch a unique online programme dedicated to your successful market entry.

What to expect?
• Fully demand-driven
• Local knowledge, local network
• Founder to founder learning
• Curated matchmaking based on your client base
• Validate your Go-to-Market strategy

Interested? Apply now to be selected via: www.dutchbasecamp.org/gotomarketgermany
Deadline: May 7

In februari brachten we De Monitor uit, ons eigen onderzoek naar de duurzaamheid van Amsterdam dat zelfs de kranten haalde. Maar we gaan door... We focussen op een thema en nodigen iedere keer een geweldige gast uit die de impact maakt op het gebied van duurzaamheid in Amsterdam. Deze keer: het thema groen met als gast, ecologisch engineer, Nadina Galle!
Een half uur lang zullen we de vragen die we in de week van Thema Groen binnen hebben gekregen aan haar voorleggen en bieden we de mogelijkheid aan alle aanwezigen om zelf vragen te stellen. Meld je aan via onderstaande link!

City officials require sensor data to optimize operations, plan projects, or measure effects of interventions. Citizens often do not notice the sensors deployed by the City in public space. Also, the benefit for the public is not directly obvious to city residents or immediately shown by the sensing systems in place. Namely, in many cases only after data is processed, it informs an action that affects citizens.

Public concerns about sensors are often connected to concerns about potential action (to be taken by, for example, city officials), and that the action has negative implications. With ‘Simple Sensors’ we address these concerns.

The Simple Sensors project, which is part of the Responsible Sensing Lab, investigates these questions: What if sensors are designed to be seen? What if they communicate clearly what data they collect and how? And what if sensors invite you to interact with them?

Modules for responsible and ‘simple sensing’
Simple Sensors consists of a family of modules, designed by The Incredible Machine, that can be combined: some modules improve transparency over what data is being collected, other modules encourage interaction, and some modules just make it understandable how sensors work. The Simple Sensors family allows the City of Amsterdam to design sensors to fit any context or purpose.

A privacy friendly alternative for CCTV
The first Simple Sensor prototype called millimeter wave (mmWave) has been developed as a proposal for the City’s crowd management sensor at the Marineterrein Amsterdam Living Lab. It consists of four modules: 1) sensor module 2) transmission module, 3) data module, 4) threshold module... Continue reading about the project on our website >>

Shuttercam is a project by Responsible Sensing Lab (RSL), a collaboration between the City of Amsterdam and AMS Institute. In essence, RSL is a testbed for conducting research and experiments on how smart sensing technologies in public space – like cameras – can be designed in a way that makes the digital city 'responsible’.

At the Lab we invite academics and practitioners responsible for digital systems in the city to explore how to integrate social values such as autonomy, privacy and transparency in the design of these sensing systems in public space.

How to know when a camera ‘sees’ you?
The Shuttercam project originated based on the notion that citizens currently can not directly know or see if and when cameras in public space are monitoring you or not. The project also questions the necessity for many non-security related cameras in the city to be switched on indefinitely.

Experimenting with 3 prototypes at Marineterrein
The Shuttercam project will test 3 prototypes. These are installed at Marineterrein Amsterdam Living Lab (MALL) in the upcoming weeks.

First and foremost, the cameras within this project are all part of the crowd monitoring system by the City of Amsterdam, which is a privacy friendly system. So what do these cameras record or see for example?

A crowd monitoring system works with a camera that has an algorithm read out and analyzes video images. In addition to measuring crowds and displaying those crowds in usable numbers, the algorithm can also determine whether people keep a distance of 1.5 meters. All this is done in an anonymous manner that naturally complies with all privacy legislation.

The video images are not watched by a human but are processed automatically. Only a few frames are saved with unrecognizable, blurred people's faces. Those frames help to "train" the algorithm. Furthermore, the images are not saved. Continue reading about the the Shuttercam project >> 

As societal values change and the deployment of sensing technology becomes more ubiquitous, what are our digital rights in a 21st-century city?  This dilemma is forcing municipalities to make difficult decisions about practice versus the policy of collecting data from public space. In collaboration with the City of Amsterdam, The City Innovation Exchange Lab (CITIXL) has created the Responsible Sensing Toolkit -  a six-step process to help navigate this new landscape in a fast and effective way. The toolkit was co-designed by experienced city innovators to empower municipalities, organisations, and communities to implement open and inclusive sensing solutions for our 21st-century cities.

Currently in Beta, we are testing the toolkit with various organisations and cities to effectively move from theory to practice by applying the framework to sensing projects in progress.  If you are a city innovator and involved in a sensing project visit our workshop landing page and learn more about how you can signup for a free 1 hour Workshop and start the journey to inclusive and ethical sensing.

The goal of the project is to provide city innovators with a framework for responsible and ethical sensing projects. With this,, we will be promoting digital rights, social values, and data ethics for sensing projects in public spaces.

The Toolkit is currently in the second phase of the development. We are exploring the third phase - to create an interactive platform that could be used by any city.It was co-designed by experienced city innovators to help municipalities, organisations, and communities implement ethical, open, and inclusive sensing solutions for our 21st-century cities.

Sensemakers next meetup will focus on Machine Learning (ML) and Security at the edge. Is there a difference in running AI on the  edge versus the cloud, how do you realize the same Machine Learning results for personalization of services and what are  specific edge security issues? Join us here with two industry experts:
1. Renuka Nadkarni CTO of F5 as the speaker on Edge security
2. Vera Serdiukova, Sr. Product Manager AI from Salesforce on Machine Learning on the Edge

When rain hits the ground it get absorbed by the soil, or it flows into see, rivers or storm drains. Construction sites also get their fair share of rain and the rain has to go somewhere. Usually it finds its way through the storm drains to the rivers. But what if this runoff water is polluted...?

When: May 10, 10:00-11:00 CEST (GMT+2)
Where: Online
Cost: Free
Language: English

This is the premise of the Gothenburg case of the SCOREwater project and in the past period the team has been working on solutions to this problem.

Definitely sign up for this event if you are:
💧 ... working on water management within your municipality,
💧 ... interested in the sensors used;
💧 ... working in construction / managing a construction site;
💧 ... interested in (EU) regulations on stormwater;

We've got a strong line-up with speakers from the Göteborg municipality and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL). You can register now.

The 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) is a European Commission (EC) initiative that supports 136 cities with using cutting-edge technologies to lead the intelligent, green and socially responsible recovery. The goal is to accelerate ICC cities and their local ecosystems as engines for post-pandemic recovery, creating new jobs and strengthening citizen participation and wellbeing.

The Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, represented by Amsterdam Economic Board and Amsterdam Smart City (ASC), has joined the ICC as a mentor region. A key task for ASC is to connect and share best practices from the Amsterdam region with the ICC network.

Here are a few of the upcoming opportunities for ASC partners and community members who would like to get involved in the ICC:

1. Sharing best practices during the 3rd ICC City Lab, May 18 – May 21: During this four day event, ASC partners have the opportunity to contribute to various knowledge and working sessions across a range of topics including: circular economy and Local Green Deals (LGD’s), energy efficient renovation, digitalization of government services, digital twins, and citizen participation.
2. Contributing to Tech4Good Marketplace:Within the scope of ICC, the EC is developing a digital platform where cities can share their experience and recommendations for validated and deployed smart city solutions.  During the April - June timeframe, ASC will collect transferable solutions and best practices from the Amsterdam Region which will be shared on the Marketplace.
3. Advise on the development of the European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC): Acknowledging the importance of interoperability for smart cities and communities, the EC contracted Deloitte and KU Leuven University to develop a proposal for a European Interoperability Framework. The aim of the EIF4SCC is to provide European local administration leaders with definitions, principles, recommendations (including practical use cases) and a common model that enables public service delivery across domains, cities, regions and borders.  The first draft of the Framework is open for stakeholder consultation via the following survey until April 12.

For more information about ICC or any of the above points, please contact Cornelia Dinca, ASC International Liaison via cornelia@amsterdamsmartcity.com