#User involvement

Topic within Smart City Academy
Evert Kuiken, Manager operations and projectmanager , posted

Herman's Smart Grids

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Herman can switch energy produced by solar panels to a specific household connected to it. Herman's Smart Grid enables it to distribute energy to a connected storage device as well. And Herman's Smart Grid can switch on or off or even manage household appliances to balance energy produced and energy used. And it can do so several times a day.

Evert Kuiken's picture #Energy
Zulfikar Dinar Wahidayat Putra, University Student , posted

looking for: Interviewee in the field of Environmental Aspect and Smart City

I am Zulfikar a master student of Urban Environmental Management in Wageningen University and Research.
Currently, I am conducting a thesis research with the title "The Interaction between Non-Government-based Smart City Projects and Government-based Environmental Management: The Case of Amsterdam". ​Basically, the research aims to investigate three elements, namely the smart city projects initiated by non-governmental parties, environmental management conducted by governmental parties, and their interaction with each other.​

Regarding that, I would like to talk to people who have knowledge about their smart city project and environmental aspects in Amsterdam. I need at least 2 persons from Amsterdam Smart City Platform, knowledge institutions, and/or companies.

The result of this research will benefit the Amsterdam Smart City platform and Amsterdam Municipality to understand about the linkage between smart city projects and environmental management of Amsterdam.

If you are the one, please let me know by contacting me via email zulfikar.dinar@gmail.com
Thank you for your help and attention.

Zulfikar Dinar Wahidayat Putra's picture #SmartCityAcademy
Anonymous posted

AI and Big Data City Council Trial

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Citibeats is a start-up based in Barcelona and we have been awarded funding to launch a proof-of-concept (lasting one month) with a limited number of cities - at no cost to the city organisation.

Our software leverages AI and Big Data to promote a more responsive, transparent and inclusive governance; providing governments with accurate situational analysis and prioritisation of solutions in a city.

We have been recognised by the UN, European Commission and NTT Data for our work in this area (see the video below for more info): https://youtu.be/JlqFpgUIJMQ

Do you want to listen to your citizens’ voices?
Do you want to empower them to create actionable change that will improve the city?
At Citybeats, we are seeking launch partners to pioneer a new model for creating sustainable and engaging communities.

Visit <http://citibeats.net/> or contact <a>cquigley@thesocialcoin.</a>com for more info.

Social Coin: NTT Data Open Innovation Contest 2016 Winner

#DigitalCity
Amsterdam Smart City, Connector of opportunities at Amsterdam Smart City, posted

The Road to Barcelona - The Interviews Part 1: Live & Fun

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In preparation for the Smart City Expo World Congress Barcelona, we spoke to Tania Kovalov. Together with her partner, she founded Live&Fun: a start-up and mobile app that allows users interact with virtual objects in the real world using smartphones. At the Expo (14-16 Nov), Live&Fun will be one of the companies to meet at the Holland Pavilion.

What does Live&Fun do?

Tania: ‘Live & Fun aims to stimulate desired behaviour with an app with gamification elements and rewards. Our solution is an augmented reality process where users can earn points for showing desired behaviour (think Pokémon Go).'

'Our solution provides not only a lot of fun for users, but also a way for municipalities to stimulate desired behaviour. At Rembrandtplein for instance, we have developed a quest in which we showed cyclists where they should park their bicycle. When they successfully did so, they were rewarded a free drink or ice cream from nearby restaurants. This example shows that Live&Fun is also a novel and unique advertising platform for local businesses based on augmented reality.'

Why should visitors of the Smart City Expo meet Live&Fun?

'We are a company that aims to increase social sustainability using gamification and technology. Cities face similar problems related to traffic, parking, public health, crowd-managing and tourism, but not all cities overcome these problems in a friendly way. We can provide a municipality the tools to resolve these urban problems through rewarding (instead of ticketing) people.. At the Expo, we hope to express our motto that behaviour change should be made fun. In co-creation with municipalities, we can develop solutions to urban issues that do not limit one’s sense of freedom.'

What does the future hold for Live&Fun?

'We will continue to search for cases where our solutions can be implemented. Together with our skilled team, we aim to deliver friendlier solutions to social issues within the municipality of Amsterdam. We dream of cities in which the relation between government and citizens is characterised by rewarding instead of fining: driven by positive instead of negative stimuli. We hope to create unique and interactive experiences for citizens and visitors and connect them with the city in unimaginable ways.'

amsterdamsmartcity.com-42af445a4c8d04c72b97cfe980ada7ed8d8d30ff.jpg amsterdamsmartcity.com-072593e2fa88922f2c9d2fe5c3c5e9fb386bbf2b.jpg

Want to know more about the Smart City Expo?

Check our introduction video here!

Amsterdam Smart City's picture #Citizens&Living
Ward Mesman, Adviseur Duurzaamheid at City of Amsterdam, posted

Circular Expo

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A temporary exposition from 9 till 27 October in the Herstelling at the Town Hall to provide practitioners of circular projects in the city and the municipality Amsterdam a place to show their work and take the spotlight. Learn what a circular economy is and how the whole city is working on becoming and staying circular.

Opening 9 October

End 27 October

Special program follows later

Do you have an innovative circular product or project and want to show it at the circulair expo? Contact Ward Mesman at w.mesman@amsterdam.nl

Ward Mesman's picture #CircularCity
Marjolein Bot, Lead Energy&Digital at Amsterdam Economic Board, posted

The secret to citizen engagement. Lessons from a Manchester success story.

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Does your project’s success depend on the involvement of citizens? But are you struggling to interest or motivate them?

In Manchester, Dave Coleman and his team have developed a method with which they have so far managed to excite and engage over 4.000 people about climate change. Not just the usual suspects, but people from all walks of life, such as Somali refugees, unemployed social housing tenants and children.

Curious to know what their secret to success is? Read it here

A few minutes ago we were all nodding our heads in agreement but now everyone in our meeting room fell silent. None of us had an answer to the question that had just been raised: “Involving citizens is important to our project but how do we make it happen?” As the silence continued, I realized: we are all citizens ourselves but as professionals we struggle with how to get ‘them’ on board with ‘us’. How odd…

Citizens never really central and seldom part of project partnership

When I started doing a bit of research on the subject, I found out we were not the only ones having a hard time. Recent research on smart city projects from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) said: “In most smart city definitions, citizens are considered to be the key users and should be the main focal point for the smart city technologies that are being developed. In the projects we evaluated, we rarely found evidence of this. Citizens were never really central and seldom an official part of the project partnership”

I sighed with relief - thank goodness, it’s not just us! Apparently many of us working in energy transition or smart city projects struggle when it comes to engaging citizens.

But off course that wasn’t actually good news. If we want to create change, and have an actual impact, we need people to (want to) join our projects or causes. But how?

Good communication alone is not citizen engagement

For many of us it’s common practice that, after the project is carefully planned and designed, we bring in the creatives and ask them to develop a sticky campaign to arouse citizen enthusiasm and involvement. When this doesn’t get the response we hoped for, we blame the campaign. This, as it turns out, isn’t quite fair (according to the UvA research):

*“Often assumptions were made about what citizens wanted or needed, without being thoroughly verified by consultation with those citizens. Moreover, many mistakes were made in determining the way of involving users in the project.*”

So, as communications expert Alec Walker-Love[1], working extensively on the subject, puts it: “Citizen engagement requires good communication – but good communication alone is not citizen engagement.”

So what is? What is the secret to citizen engagement? The subject started to feel like a mysterious black box to me; what on earth gets citizens going? Or, even better, gets them to stand still and reconsider their thinking or behavior?

Involving over 4.000 ‘unusual suspects’ in climate change

Salvation came unexpectedly. Last March, when visiting Manchester, we had the pleasure of meeting Dave Coleman co-founder and Managing Director of the Carbon Literacy Project (and member of our City-zen Advisory Board). He amazed us. With the Carbon Literacy Project he had so far managed to excite and engage over 4.000 people (!) in and around Manchester about climate change. Not just the usual suspects, but people from all walks of life, such as Somali refugees, unemployed social housing tenants and children. I couldn’t wait to get the inside line from Dave to how this was done. Fortunately he was willing to share it all.

The Carbon Literacy Project emerged from Manchester’s climate change action plan ‘Manchester: A Certain Future’, written in 2009. Next to an ambitious goal for reducing the city’s CO2 emissions, the plan pledged to ‘engage all individuals, neighborhoods and organizations in Manchester in a process of cultural change that embeds ‘low-carbon thinking’ into the lifestyles and operations of the city’. You can’t however expect a process of cultural change to happen if people don’t have enough knowledge or understanding of the carbon impacts of their activities. So one of the objectives of the plan was to make people ‘carbon literate’.

In 2010 Dave and his ‘Cooler Projects’ business partner Phil Korbel, decided to take up the carbon literacy challenge. Because, as Dave put it; “if we want change, we need people to just get it”.

The Carbon Literacy Standard: anything but standard

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This was no easy task. The aim, as formulated in the plan, wasn’t to develop some kind of awareness campaign but to offer every citizen within Greater Manchester ‘one days’ worth of learning’ about climate change. Dave and Phil brought together a voluntary 30-person working group, consisting of people drawn from all sectors, to work collectively in developing an approach to engage people. They called it ‘The Carbon Literacy Standard’. Their approach however is anything but ‘standard’. Instead of developing an ‘off-the-shelf’ training course to make people ‘carbon literate’, they decided to create a different kind of program. One that turned out to be very successful because it has adopted a very distinctive (learning) method. A method in which people not only gain knowledge about climate change but actually become involved in the subject and start to care about it.

3 ESSENTIAL LESSONS FROM MANCHESTER

So what is their method all about? How do they manage to turn those heads around and influence behavior? The answer is both short and simple: by putting those they want to reach at the heart of everything they do. They don’t focus on what they want or think is important but on what is meaningful to others and works for them. Is it that simple? Yes it is. The hard part off course is in actually doing it. And how. Here are three key elements the CLP works by that are universally applicable to every project whose success depends on engaging others:

1. Always speak in terms of the other man’s needs

At the Carbon Literacy Project they focus on what they call ‘local learning’: trying to make whatever you are trying to teach (or tell) as relevant as possible to the person at the other side of the table. “Nobody will show up just to talk about climate change” Dave explains “it all starts with finding common ground. Talk about something they are interested in and show them how climate change is tied up with that.”

Dave illustrates this with an example: How do you reduce the number of FC United fans driving to soccer games? Not by telling them it is better for the environment to take public transport but by talking about things they care about: “take the Metro and everyone can have a beer, you travel together with your mates, you will save a few pounds and you don’t have to worry about finding a parking spot…. “ Or by enhancing their pride of FC United: “our club is doing something about climate change and we are going to do it much better than others.”

Dave emphasizes that is important to “always speak in terms of the other man’s needs” referring to one of the principles from Dale Carnegie’s famous book ‘How to win friends and influence people’. “Ask yourself; what are they interested in right now? And then try to find the overlap. It is all about shaping it into somebody else’s needs or interests.”

Dave’s words remind me of a quote by another bestselling author[2]: “First seek to understand and then to be understood.” If you want to engage people into whatever your cause is, first make an effort to immerse yourself in what is important to them. Only then you will know how to spark their interest. Now of course that isn’t always easy but it will pay off; it will earn you people’s attention and willingness to be involved in your project.

2. Invite those that are essential to your project in from the start

At the Carbon Literacy Project they believe they can’t know what kind of training works best for you, your group, community or organization. What works well in one group or community might fail in another. That’s why they have embraced a concept that Dave calls ‘crowdsourcing the training’. Which means you – the person working to achieve Carbon Literacy in your group - get all the help and input you need, but you customize the training for your group and, whenever possible, deliver it yourself too (more about that in #3). As Dave says: ““We don’t focus on form but on outcome”. They trust that, with the right guidance, these ‘trainers’ will be able to put together a better working training program, fitting the needs and interests of their own group, than CLP would have. And thus creating a better outcome.

In addition, they emphasize the importance of a concept called ‘group enquiry’. This means that during a training you do not tell people what to do differently to reduce their carbon impact but you let the learners, with input of expert knowledge and peer support, jointly find their own answers and devise their own solution. Or as Dave puts it: “We just create the space, provide the necessary knowledge and people find their own way to the answers” This maximizes the participants’ sense of independence, expertise and purpose in responding to climate change and thus will increase ownership and their motivation to act further.

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So how does that translate to us working in smart city or energy transition projects? If you want to influence people’s thinking or behavior, do not only immerse yourself in what is important to others but also invite them in from the very start. Don’t try to put it all together by yourself first and then reach out, but work together with those that are essential to your project from the very beginning. You can be the driving force but put your ego aside: be open to unexpected ideas and approaches of others. This will not only create a better outcome but it will also boost enthusiasm and ownership with those that are essential to the success of your project.

3. Focus on a peer-to-peer approach

At the Carbon Literacy Project they believe that “training is most trusted and best delivered by peers”; people who, to the learner, “feel like themselves”. Dave explains: “Information becomes more credible when it is told by peers, by ‘people-like-you’, not some expert talking down. I, for example, wouldn’t be credible to most soccer fans. I simply don’t look and sound the part. It’s better to take somebody they already respect. Someone they share a common background with. Research shows that peers are the most trusted source of information” That’s why Carbon Literacy training is mostly delivered by someone from the group it focuses on.

So, if you want people to be open to your project, work together with a few (respected) members of that specific community. Find likeminded people and involve them as your local ‘ambassadors’ and work together from the start in formulating your message and determining the way of approaching people.

Stating the obvious?

Now to many these three lessons from Manchester might feel like stating the obvious. Nothing new. And you are right. Deep down most of us already know these things. And that’s great. But we don't always do them. Now what it takes is courage. Courage to start putting what we know into practice. And making an effort to really connect. Because, let’s face it, engagement is a two-way activity. And it starts with us.

[1] Alec Walker-Love is co-writer of ‘Report on innovative citizen engagement strategies’.

[2] Stephan Covey - ‘7 habits of highly effective people’

Marjolein Bot's picture #Citizens&Living
Rozemarijn deFeijter, Development Manager Smart Living @ PostNL at PostNL, posted

PostNL Mailmen inform citizens about activities in the neighborhood

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Almost half of the citizens of Amsterdam is lonely. Therefore, Amsterdam has set up a network of stakeholders who want to fight loneliness. Cordaan and PostNL are part of this network. We see many activities that are already organized for people, that can help them to deal with loneliness. Cordaan, for instance, organizes daily activities for seniors. However, citizens are not always familiar with the possibilities to get help and the activities that are organized for them in their own neighborhoods. Only people who actively seek help themselves or get help via their general practitioner or family now profit from the help organized by welfare organizations.

To increase awareness about these activities and possibilities, and eventually increase participation, Cordaan and PostNL work together in a new experiment. This experiment is one of the 39 out of 116 experiments selected by the municipality to decrease loneliness in Amsterdam. Cordaan and PostNL will focus on lonely seniors. Cordaan will make a selection of addresses of possibly interested senior citizens in Banne Buiksloot in Amsterdam Noord and will inform them about the experiment by mail. A week later, the mailmen will ring the doorbell and ask questions such as: ‘Do you know about the activities organized for you in your neighborhood?’; ‘Would you like to participate in these activities?’; ‘Would you like to talk about the activities and possibilities with an employee of Cordaan?’. If the last question is answered with a ‘Yes’, an employee of Cordaan will make an appointment with the senior to determine which activities or what help would be suitable for that individual person.

PostNL investigates how it can react on a changing society by investigating new ways to leverage it’s network, with over 20.000 mailmen. This new role for the mailmen holds numerous advantages. The mailmen are well-know in the neighborhood and work for a trusted brand. Therefore, we believe people will be more inclined to answer their questions at the door, than they would be if the person at the door were a complete stranger. In addition, the mailmen are not affiliated with a healthcare or welfare organization, and can start a conversation from a more neutral perspective. Therefore, with this cooperation between Cordaan and PostNL, we hope to reach more seniors who would benefit from the activities and possibilities in the neighborhood. Eventually, we hope to decrease loneliness of senior citizens by increasing their network in the neighborhood and their participation in that network.

Rozemarijn deFeijter's picture #Citizens&Living
Beatriz Pineda Revilla, Researcher at University of Amsterdam (UvA), posted

CODALoop Amsterdam

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CODALoop is a EU-funded research project and a joint venture of different academic and non-academic partners in three countries, The Netherlands, Austria and Turkey and four cities, Amsterdam, Graz, Leibnitz and Istanbul. CODALoop Amsterdam is active in two neighborhoods, the Indische Buurt and Buiksloterham.

There is a tremendous urgency to reduce energy consumption to guarantee quality of life for future generations. In the light of the weak results of behavioral approaches and top-down investments on infrastructures for energy efficiency, such as grid management, smart meters and the like, innovative approaches to tackle this issue are required. CODALoop Amsterdam is a research project which uses a sociological approach and explores the extent to which social interactions, at the level of the neighborhood, are able to activate ‘energy consciousness’.

Beatriz Pineda Revilla's picture #Energy
Arjan Luiten, Senior Strategisch Consultant; Monitoring & Data Gedreven werken , posted

Het Vuilrak

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On a location in Haarlem we focus on co-creational development of circular solutions for businesses.

Arjan Luiten's picture #CircularCity
Jurgen Rutgers, Managing Director , posted

Mobility Portal

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The Mobility Portal offers visitors of venues the best travel advice at that moment (real time), which they can immediately book online.

Smart Stories

Check the article about the Mobility Portal featured in our online magazine 'Smart Stories':

Jurgen Rutgers's picture #Mobility
Sandy Reitsma, Communication & PR at The Great Bubble Barrier, posted

The Great Bubble Barrier

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Every year, more than 8 million tons of plastic pollution ends up in our oceans of which 60-80% originates from rivers. Plastic does not biodegrade and causes great harm to the environment. Marine life gets entangled in plastics, vessels get damaged and microplastics form a health hazard for the smallest to the largest organisms. The Great Bubble Barrier has developed a technology which can intercept plastic pollution in rivers before it reaches the ocean: the Bubble Barrier, a bubble curtain with a catchment system.

The first long-term Bubble Barrier in the world was placed in November 2019 at Westerdok in Amsterdam.

Watch the video of Bubble Barrier Amsterdam.

THE BUBBLE BARRIER SYSTEM: HOW DOES IT WORK?
The bubble curtain is created by pumping air through a perforated tube on the bottom of the waterway. We make use of the natural flow of the river. The plastic waste will be directed to the side and into our catchment system at the riverbank, where it will be retained and removed from the water.

- It does not hinder ship traffic
- It covers the full width and depth of the waterway
- It allows fish to pass

Visit the Bubble Barrier Amsterdam at Westerdoksplein.

Will the next Bubble Barrier be in your river or city? Send The Great Bubble Barrier a message!

Sandy Reitsma's picture #CircularCity
Stephanie Akkaoui Hughes, Founder & CEO at AKKA Architects, posted

Social Mobility Rotterdam

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In collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure, we are working on a new opportunity for social mobility. It is a program that supports start-ups (as well as other companies with a start-up service) who have a service in the field of Social Mobility. Social Mobility is about mobility services that can create social impact, either by servicing the less mobile users, the ones with less financial means, addressing loneliness, lack of education…etc. For example, think of people that need the soup kitchen or the salvation army but can’t afford getting there, or people that cannot go to job interviews because they can't afford the transport to get there and are therefore stuck in a vicious circle of poverty.

We are looking for social (mobility) entrepreneurs, testers and investors:

1. Social entrepreneurs: If you are or know of start-ups that have such social mobility services that would be interested in developing them, testing them with users, finding investment and scaling, please let us know! P.S: We are not only looking for start-ups, we are also welcoming established companies that have a 'start-up level' service.

2. Testers: they can be the end-users themselves or in-between organisations, such as the Salvation Army for example, which would have access to a large group of end-users. Do you have contacts of know someone that would be an early adopter of such innovative social mobility services, please put us in touch.

3. Investors: we are also looking for investors that would be interested in investing in social entrepreneurs to help create social impact. Do you have contacts or know a party that could be interested, please put us in touch.

stephanie.hughes@akkaarchitects.com

Here you can see an earlier version of this program: http://www.rotterdammobilitylab.nl

Rotterdam Mobility Lab - De terugblik van de eerste editie

Rotterdam Mobility Lab - De Verkeersonderneming

#Mobility
Coen Bakker, Marketing Manager , posted

Mid-scale waste-to-value transformers, on-site

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Turn your last-night leftovers into energy that powers your household!

The Waste Transformers was started in 2012 by Lara van Druten. Lara had one goal: to create a flourishing business that inspires others to change the way that they deal with waste and to establish a business model able to balance financial, social and environmental returns. Today, the Waste Transformers are the recognised partner of choice for those with the ambition and courage to realize real, circular economies around waste.

The Waste Transformers creates another small-scale circular economy in Amsterdam

Coen Bakker's picture #Energy
Counter Content, posted

E-bike als oplossing voor onderhoud A10 West

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Vanaf 24 juli starten de werkzaamheden aan de A10 West, wat automobilisten hinder op gaat leveren. De FietsCoalitie, een samenwerking van verschillende bedrijven en overheden, heeft hier een oplossing voor bedacht. Met hun ‘A10 West dicht? Ga toch fietsen!’ zomeractie kunnen automobilisten een e-bike winnen voor de duur van de werkzaamheden aan de A10 West om zo de afstand tussen huis en het werk op een andere wijze, comfortabel af te leggen. Op deze manier wil De FietsCoalitie ook het fietsgebruik in de regio Zaanstad en Amsterdam stimuleren.

Maak kans op een e-bike voor zes weken!

De werkzaamheden door Rijkswaterstaat aan de A10 West bij Amsterdam beslaan een periode van zes weken. De eerste drie weken is de Noord-Zuid richting afgesloten en de overige drie weken de richting van Zuid naar Noord. Het verkeer zal omgeleid worden met alle hinder van dien. Om automobilisten een goed alternatief te bieden heeft De FietsCoalitie de campagne ‘A10 West dicht? Ga toch fietsen!’ opgezet.

In samenwerking met deelfiets bedrijf Urbee verloten zij 60 e-bikes voor de zes weken waarin de werkzaamheden plaatsvinden (10 fietsen per week). Daarnaast maken 10 personen kans op een Stromer, een high speed pedelec, die wordt geleverd door QicQ. De periode van de werkzaamheden valt voor de automobilisten precies in de zomervakantie, waardoor zij de gelegenheid krijgen om de e-bike ook in de vakantie te proberen.

Deelnemers kunnen zich aanmelden voor deze e-bike zomeractie op:

www.fietscoalitiesmartcity.nl/a10westdicht.

E-bike als alternatief voor de auto

Niet alleen wordt fietsen met een e-bike een stuk comfortabeler, ook zijn langere afstanden relatief snel (20 t/m 40 kilometer per uur) en gemakkelijker af te leggen. Daarnaast is de e-bike efficiënter dan een auto in de stad. De e-bike biedt een prima alternatief voor de auto bij woon-werk afstanden van wel 20 tot 40 kilometer. Daarnaast is de e-bike beter voor het milieu, de gezondheid en levert het een bijdrage aan het reduceren van files. De regio heeft een zeer goed fietsnetwerk wat fietsen hier nog aangenamer maakt.

“Naast dat wij automobilisten met deze actie een comfortabel alternatief bieden, is dit natuurlijk een uitgelezen kans om het fietsgebruik te stimuleren. Het verloten van een e-bike in plaats van een gewone fiets zal hierbij helpen. Het is immers prettiger fietsen met het gevoel de wind in de rug te hebben, dan er tegenin te moeten trappen. Je legt daardoor sneller en gemakkelijker grotere afstanden af, ook dus van en naar je werk.” aldus Helma Schenkeveld, partner in de FietsCoalitie.

Over De Fietscoalitie

De FietsCoalitie is een samenwerkingsverband tussen een aantal private partijen, de gemeenten Amsterdam en Zaanstad en diverse ondernemersverenigingen. De FietsCoalitie heeft als doel om vertraging tussen woon-werkritten te verminderen, bereikbaarheid van de regio te verbeteren en de lucht schoon te houden. Dit doen zij door, in samenwerking met lokale partijen en overheden, campagnes op te zetten die het fietsgebruik stimuleren.

Deze acties hebben met name betrekking op mensen die dagelijks voor het werk in of door het gebied Westpoort, Sloterdijk, Amsterdam-Noord en Zaanstad reizen. De FietsCoalitie wordt ondersteund door het programma Beter Benutten Metropoolregio Amsterdam. Binnen dit programma nemen het bedrijfsleven, het Rijk en regionale en lokale overheden tot 2018 ruim 30 maatregelen om de reistijd op de drukste knelpunten in de spits met 10 procent te verbeteren. Kijk voor meer informatie op: www.fietscoalitiesmartcity.nl.

#Mobility
Hannah Lennett, Outreach & Partnerships at OpenIDEO, posted

Join the $1 million #CircularDesign Challenge

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Organizations involved

THE NEW PLASTICS ECONOMY INITIATIVE

The New Plastics Economy is an ambitious, three-year initiative to build momentum towards a plastics system that works. Applying the principles of the circular economy, it brings together key stakeholders to rethink and redesign the future of plastics, starting with packaging. The initiative is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with a broad group of leading companies, cities, philanthropists, policymakers, academics, students, NGOs, and citizens.

The initiative is supported by Wendy Schmidt as Lead Philanthropic Partner, and MAVA Foundation, Oak Foundation, and players of People’s Postcode Lottery (GB) as Philanthropic Funders. Amcor, The Coca-Cola Company, Danone, MARS, Novamont, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Veolia are the initiative’s Core Partners.

ELLEN MACARTHUR FOUNDATION

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was created in 2010 to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. The Foundation works across five areas: insight and analysis, business and government, education and training, systemic initiatives, and communication. With its Knowledge Partners (Arup, IDEO, McKinsey & Co., and SYSTEMIQ), and supported by Core Philanthropic Funder (SUN), the Foundation works to quantify the economic opportunity of a circular model and to develop approaches for capturing its value. The Foundation collaborates with its Global Partners (Danone, Google, H&M, Intesa Sanpaolo, NIKE, Inc., Philips, Renault, Unilever), and its CE100 network (businesses, universities, emerging innovators, governments, cities and affiliate organisations), to build capacity, explore collaboration opportunities and to develop circular business initiatives. By establishing platforms such as the New Plastics Economy initiative, the Foundation works to transform key material flows, applying a global, cross-sectoral, cross value chain approach that aims to effect systems change.

www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org | @circulareconomy

INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY UNIT

The Prince of Wales's International Sustainability Unit (ISU) was formed in 2010 to address critical challenges to development and the environment. The ISU builds on the success of The Prince’s Rainforests Project, established to help find a solution to tropical deforestation. With an international reputation for neutral convening, underpinned by rigorous analysis, the ISU engages key actors from Governments, the private sector, research communities and civil society to catalyze positive change across the global sustainability agenda.

The ISU's Marine Programme focuses on the global transition to a sustainable Blue Economy. The core components of this work include fish stock recovery, coral reef health and marine plastic pollution. During the last six years the ISU has brought together stakeholders from all sectors to accelerate solutions to some of the most pressing ocean-related challenges and build consensus on solutions for and a pathway towards a sustainable Blue Economy.

www.pcfisu.org

WENDY SCHMIDT

Wendy Schmidt is President of The Schmidt Family Foundation, where she works to advance the development of renewable energy and the wiser use of natural resources. The Foundation houses its grant-making operation in The 11th Hour Project, which supports more than 150 non-profit organizations around the world in program areas including renewable energy, ecological agriculture, human rights, and our maritime connection through its 11th Hour Racing program. In 2009, Wendy Schmidt and her husband, Eric Schmidt, created the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), and in 2012 launched the research vessel, Falkor, as a mobile platform to advance ocean exploration, discovery, and knowledge, and catalyze the sharing of information about the oceans. Since 2012, Falkor has hosted more than 500 scientists from 27 countries.

To further her commitment to ocean issues, in 2010 Wendy Schmidt partnered with XPRIZE, following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, to sponsor the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup XCHALLENGE, a $1.4 million competition designed to identify efficient and innovative solutions to clean up surface oil spills. Wendy Schmidt once again partnered with XPRIZE in 2012 to design the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE, a $2 million purse, awarded in July, 2015, where competitors responded to the global need for accurate and available sensors to more broadly measure the signs of ocean acidification, one of the harbingers of climate change.

Wendy Schmidt is the Lead Philanthropic Partner of the New Plastics Economy Initiative, which is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Wendy earned an M.J. in Journalism from The University of California at Berkeley, and a B.A. magna cum laude from Smith College.

Follow Wendy on Twitter: @wenschmidt

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Anonymous posted

Open Council Information (Open Raad Informatie)

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(Dutch)

Het doel van Open Raadsinformatie is om documenten zoals verslagen, voorstellen, stemuitslagen en moties van gemeenten op een gestandaardiseerde wijze als open data te ontsluiten. Door hergebruik van de informatie kunnen innovatieve toepassingen gemaakt worden die de lokale democratie versterken. Al dan niet door meer inzicht te verschaffen in de gegevens, analyse mogelijk te maken of participatie eenvoudiger te maken. Via de

Open Raadsinformatie API

zijn meer dan 30.000 documenten van inmiddels zeven gemeenten te vinden. De informatie is via de zoekmachine

Open Raadsinformatie

te doorzoeken. Het project is in de tussentijd onderdeel geworden van het Actieplan Open Overheid 2016-2017 en van de Digitale Agenda 2020 van VNG en KING. Vanuit de Pilotstarter wordt nu verder gewerkt aan het project.

PILOTSTARTER

De Pilotstarter kent drie fases, pilot, praktijkbeproeving en opschaling. Voor de zomer is door de Open State Foundation samen met VNG-KING gewerkt aan de pilotfase. Samen met de gemeente Utrecht, die al in de pilot van 2015 haar raadsinformatie als open data heeft ontsloten, is gewerkt aan verbeteringen omtrent de herbruikbaarheid van de data. Er is samen met de griffie van de gemeente Utrecht en hun raadsinformatieleverancier gewerkt aan het ontsluiten van machine-leesbare stemuitslagen, presentielijsten, personenregister en tekst-doorzoekbare moties en amendementen. Bekijk hier een voorbeeld vanuit de zoekmachine en de API. Eerder waren deze gegevens niet op een goede manier uit de data te halen, terwijl hergebruikers hier wel om vragen.

PRAKTIJKBEPROEVING

De pilot met de gemeente Utrecht om beter herbruikbare open data te ontsluiten was succesvol. Nu wordt er door KING in samenwerking met de Open State Foundation gewerkt aan de praktijkbeproeving. Dat betekent dat de methodiek die toegepast in de gemeente Utrecht opgeschaald wordt naar een extra aantal gemeenten met ook een andere leverancier. Lukt het bij gemeenten, met bijvoorbeeld een kleinere griffie of andere systemen, ook om dezelfde informatie te ontsluiten? En hoe kan het project verder opgeschaald worden voor alle gemeenten? Daarnaast werkt KING aan een gezamenlijke standaard voor het ontsluiten van raadsinformatie door raadsinformatieleveranciers. Een doel dat opgenomen staat in het Actieplan Open Overheid.

LEVERANCIERS GAAN OPEN

Van de vijf grote raadsinformatieleveranciers, zijn er momenteel vier die raadsinformatie als open data via een API kunnen aanbieden of hieraan werken. MSI (iBabs) ondersteunt open data ontsluiting via een API al vanaf het begin, Company Webcast en GemeenteOplossingen hebben sinds enkele maanden ook een API-koppeling actief. NotuBiz heeft onlangs laten weten vanaf medio 2017 Open Raadsinformatie technisch te kunnen ondersteunen.

PRAKTIJKBEPROEVING

Op dit moment werken we samen met tien gemeenten die gebruik maken van iBabs Dossiers of GemeenteOplossingen voor de Praktijkbeproeving. De resultaten van deze Praktijkbeproeving worden verwacht in april 2017. Heb je interesse of vragen? Neem dan contact op met <a >Tom Kunzler.</a>

In de tussentijd kun je alvast bij jouw raadsinformatieleverancier aangeven dat je interesse hebt in het beschikbaar stellen van de eigen raadsinformatie als open data. Er is ook een FAQ waar je antwoorden op veelvoorkomende vragen.

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Marije Poel, Programma manager at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, posted

Watch now the Webinar EIP-SCC on "organising smart city projects"

This webinar gives some insights into the research on 12 Amsterdam Smart City projects, conducted by the Amsterdam University of Applied Science together with Amsterdam Smart City.

From minute 9.37 onwards, professor van Winden presents the wide context of smart projects, focusing on non-technological aspects of smart city projects. He addresses several challenges commonly faced during smart projects; for example, the collaboration of organisations with different agendas and the involvement of different stakeholders and how to divide returns and risks. From minute 40 onwards professor van Winden answers some questions coming from the audience who attended the webinar live at the 6th of june.

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Remco Wagemakers, Consultant/ Project Manager , posted

Zero Waste Expedition Plantage Amsterdam

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Reducing waste, encourage recycling, converting waste into commodities: developing a new way of sustainable waste collection and disposal.

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