#Sharing economy
Projects

In the past decade, we have witnessed a surge of cooperatives across society. From community-led energy projects to endeavours in collective mobility and housing, citizens and companies are increasingly organizing themselves to shape their surroundings, often driven by sustainability and social goals and most of them do this in a not for profit way. Despite this rich history and the ongoing proliferation of initiatives, cooperative efforts and their benefits often remain small-scale and localized and, in most cases, accessible only to specific and select demographics.

This challenge aims to help civil society organizations in the energy domain, such as energy cooperatives, to become more mainstream. We aim to create recognition, to create an understanding of mutual interests with the key stakeholders they have to work with, and to exchange knowledge for these organizations to grow faster or repeat.

Growing population, aging infrastructure, lack of mobility-related resources, and inefficient transport networks are leading to higher traffic congestion, road safety, and supply of mobility services in urban areas. It has become important for cities to look for smart mobility solutions to tackle these problems. Intelligent Transportation System is one such innovative concept that enables reliable and more personalized travel experience to move around in cities. Let’s have a look at the concept in detail.

What is an Intelligent Transportation System?

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) strives to innovate, plan, operate, evaluate, and manage transportation systems by leveraging advanced information and communication technologies. ITS refers to the use of technology to collect and analyze information related to the sector to deliver integrated transportation solutions.

It focuses on various modes of transportation, infrastructure, vehicles, traffic management, stakeholders, and smart mobility. From a holistic point of view, it rectifies errors related to transportation, infrastructure and enables systematic management of the entire transport system by leveraging a wide range of technology. It is one of the important components of many innovative transportation solutions like Mobility as a Service, Connected, and automated mobility.

Moreover, effective use of infrastructure, capacity, technology in ITS requires a lot of planning well in advance by ITS specialists. That can be implemented by collaboration or public-private partnerships. Because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration while implementing ITS, e.g., transport modes, design, routing, vehicles, technology type, and traffic flows, to make transportation safe and well-coordinated.

What is the need For ITS?

Transport authorities continue to raise the bar for safe and hassle-free transportation for commuters, but there are other challenges that commuters face related to urban congestion, inadequate road infrastructure, aging infrastructure, road safety, inefficient public transportation, and higher energy consumption. ITS can play an important role in solving these problems and better manage and control the transportation systems in real-time.

ITS facilitates new opportunities and more transportation choices integrated with easy-to-use technology. It is a multi-disciplinary concept that presents much-needed and cost-effective transportation solutions for smart cities. ITS can:

• Use resources and infrastructure effectively (existing as well as new)
• Plan, design, and implement comprehensive transportation systems
• Offers multi-modal, adequate, and on-demand transportation options
• Enhance public transportation management and its attractiveness
• Combat urban congestion
• Improve road safety and security
• Reduce fuel and energy consumption levels
• Control and manage traffic in the cities
• Make transport safe, efficient, manageable, and sustainable

Hello smart city lovers! What do you think of this proposal for a Sound Garden @ Marineterrein?

We are proposing a welcome and open place of musical exploration and reflection for all Amsterdammers and visitors to Marineterrein.

It invites you to stay and play, to enjoy the wonder of sounds, and to discover music inside yourself.

Solidary, Creative Economy, for Communities and With Communities!
Thousands of other initiatives around the world!

(Ana Luíza Farage Silva)

At some point people realized that they needed each other to do something other than "subsist". From there, they decided to organize themselves in something called communities in order to improve their lives and practice a good "survival". Over time, they realized that the law of the strongest could hurt and decided to affirm social contracts to live together and in harmony.

Some people understood that they should give up some freedoms for this, others did not. Over time, these communities have been forming their stories, generating their identities and dynamizing their cultures. When communities became organized, they started to be called societies.

How many societies do we know? How many societies do we live in? Within these social contracts, many have little and few have a lot. Much what? Wealth? Yes, few have access! Access to quality education, decent health, respectful housing, nutritious food and so on.

How many can do what they want and how many cannot do what they need? It is in this concern that I perceive (as several others have already noted) that everything tends to come together. The better structured places attract bigger investments that generate bigger chains that attract even more investments and keep developing (or just growing) more and more. The point is that where there is little, little remains.

Does it have to be this way? If you were a government official and were going to choose to develop a state, would you give growth incentives to regions that are already more advanced or encourage the development of those that still have almost nothing? The prudent answer may be: "it depends" ... if you just want to develop faster, it may be easier to encourage the growth of the wealthiest regions.

After all, their chain is greater and they can “pull” other cities in the process of growth. But if you think about it on the other hand, you can see that there is no certainty that the poorest cities will be fostered by the richest. Will the access ever get there? With this in mind, several concepts and practices have been developed. Have you ever heard of Creative Economy? Basically, knowledge, creativity and intellectual capital are the production factors of this economy.

In this process, cultural production is used as a historical factor in the formation of identity and income generation in that community. In other words, a new look at the solution of the structural problems of society, the economy and culture are sought from the identity of that population.

In other words, development is sought from the convergence and respect for the roots of that people's history with cultural, social and economic objectives. Discussions, initiatives and studies have been taking place throughout Brazil with the aim of expanding this concept: the first International Forum of Creative Cities in Rio Quente took place in September 2013 http://rioquente.go.gov.br/cidades-criativas/, the IV Minas Gerais Meeting of Public Administration, Solidarity Economy and Social Management (IV EMAPEGS) addressed this theme in Viçosa this year http://www.emapegs.ufv.br/ and so on.

In addition, another concept has been addressed, created and practiced. Have you heard of Solidarity Economy? The concept of solidarity started to be guided at the end of the 18th century, but it has not yet been completely assimilated to the market. In this context, solidarity economy means interdependence and is based on the principles of cooperation, self-management and brings an economic dimension to society. In other words, we think of a market geared towards people, not people geared towards the market.

Despite the various difficulties faced by the Solidarity Economy, such as mapping, production flow, obtaining credit, advice and collective work, many advances and initiatives have taken place in Brazil. Have you heard of the Center for Solidarity Economy of Tocantis? UFT's NESOL? They have been working hard on this process: http://www.fapto.uft.edu.br/conhecimento/index.php/uft/14-nucleo-de-economia-solidaria-da-uft-nesol. Many communities have also realized that they live on the job, but remain in poverty. So they decided to challenge all the pre-established and create social currencies. That is, they realized that they had to develop some way to encourage the money to circulate more within the community itself, with the possibility of exchanging it for the real. Some initiatives have been implemented in Brazil. The first was Banco Palmas, at the Palmeiras complex in Fortaleza (CE). http://www.bancopalmas.org.br/oktiva.net/1235/nota/12291. Today there are more than 110 community banks, a chain, across Brazil. Several other initiatives in the world have been taken, but it is clear that challenges abound.

Te wicked? Niet voor ons.

Wij werken allemaal aan urgente, complexe, maatschappelijke uitdagingen. Issues die schier onoplosbaar lijken, van dilemma’s en paradoxen omgeven, nog niet duidelijk hoe het moet. Wel is duidelijk dát het moet, dat we elkaar nodig
hebben en dat we er NU aan moeten beginnen. Om met de woorden van Jan Rotmans te spreken; we leven niet in een tijdperk van verandering maar in een verandering van tijdperk. En hier hoort een nieuwe gereedschapskist bij.

En of je nou aan energietransitie werkt, andere mobiliteitssystemen, creëren van waterstofhubs, peer to peer autodeelsystemen, het maakt niet uit, we zien dat al deze opgaven op enig moment tegen gelijksoortige barrières aanlopen. Op samenwerking, financiering, privacy, onvoldoende aansluiting op de maatschappij, om maar een paar voorbeelden te noemen.

Unieke samenwerking
Als Amsterdam Smart City netwerk willen en kunnen we deze opgaven niet laten liggen. Door het bundelen van onze kennis en expertise kunnen we als netwerk iets unieks bieden en de wil en durf tonen om deze barrières te doorbreken. De betrokken partners die dit uitdenken en begeleiden zijn RHDHV, Kennisland, Drift, NEMO, Arcadis, Alliander, HvA en Metabolic. Zij bundelen hun expertise en ervaring om de echte vragen boven tafel te krijgen, tot nieuwe manieren van samenwerken te komen en barrières te doorbreken. We richten ons met name op de start van de samenwerking. Gezamenlijk ontwikkelen we een ‘wicked problem aanpak’. Op een nieuwe manier, lerend door te doen, exploratief.

Waar moet je aan denken?
Wat is eigenlijk het echte probleem? Wiens probleem is dit? Hoe kijken anderen er tegenaan? Welke andere partijen lijken nodig? Hoe vind je ze? Hoe ga je om met eigenaarschap en botsende frames? Hoe zorg je dat je al in
een vroeg stadium de maatschappij (bewoners, ondernemers, werknemers, etc) betrekt en hun ervaringen in het project trekt? Het wicked problem team zet nieuwe methoden in voor het beantwoorden van deze vragen. En het creëren van de benodigde commitment om het vraagstuk aan te pakken. Niets staat van te voren vast, want we passen ons aan aan wat we tegenkomen. Met elkaar ontwikkelen we een nieuwe aanpak om de barrières te doorbreken.

The KasKantine is a small, transportable, ecovillage in the city, currently buildin up on its fourth location in the West of Amsterdam, completely made with DoItYourSelf technology and mostly with natural and waste materials. Still it has hold a liquor permit and a restaurant that can host up to 150 guests. Furthermore a mobile aquaponic system, rain water filter and waste water filter, 30 solar panels and 13 shipping containers accommodating social initiatives and ecological entrepreneurs.

Amsterdam is where the world discovers new solutions for global challenges. Campus Amsterdam connects all campuses, labs and innovation districts in the Amsterdam metropolitan area, to provide entrepreneurs, researchers and students around the world with one entrance to the region's wealth of innovation, knowledge and education.

For all the local partners involved, Campus Amsterdam is a network that facilitates the exchange of knowledge and the development of new crossovers. The diversity and amount of districts combined with Amsterdam's bottom-up innovation DNA make Campus Amsterdam a unique accelerator of regional innovation.

Guiding you straight to the things we love about our cities

For more information, check out our pitch presentation:

<img height="1" width="1" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1554884584763249&ev=PageView&noscript=1"/>

Encouraging activities in the sharing economy that will benefit innovation, social inclusiveness, entrepreneurship and sustainability.

See

<http://www.slideshare.net/shareNL/amsterdam-actionplan-sharing-economy>

for our action plan

Experimenting towards a circulair environment.