A Smart-City can be defined as the achievement of maximum quality of life with a minimum use of resources, with the help of the intelligent networking of digital technologies. It is possible to make a city more attractive, more environment-friendly and less wasteful of energy or water, facing several challenges at the same time: social, methodological, technical, organizational and conceptual.
Even if this contemporary utopia for our future cities sounds good, it can be useful to bring in mind that Smart-City and democracy were not primarily related. We are collectively running, worldwide, into this model of living but who asked for it? Mainly IT companies whom business models are based on data exploitation, and governments that sighted a good opportunity to bring private investments in public facilities.
When Artificial Intelligence continues to inspire a lot of innovation debates, we already know that an intelligent decision-making algorithm based on data analysis, would probably not make the same choices than humans, influenced be sensitiveness and natural moral law. What we are living actually is an unprecedented opportunity to up-grade the global efficiency of our urban areas, and implicating all stakeholders in its achievement is the crucial condition to avoid a disastrous bouncing effect against technology in a few decades.
Maybe you will also like these updates
Anoop Kumar Jha,
Architect Planner, MSc. (Infrastructure & Smart Cities)
,
posted
Everything Urban 001_Interactive Talk for students and young professionals
Everything Urban 001 (LinkedIn Event) is the first in the Interactive Talk series for students and young professionals interested in Urban Affairs i.e. urban planning, urban management, architecture, sustainability, smart cities, to name some. Feel Free to attend it on September 4, 2025. More details in the link.
Jorgen Karskens,
Project manager Civic Interaction Design
at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences,
posted
How to maintain good intentions in the smart city?
During this ThingsCon Salon, we explore how to give good intentions a lasting place in smart city projects. Join us!
On October 29th from 16:00-19:00 we will be at the stunning Scheveningen Pier for a workshop and talks on how to give good intentions a lasting place in government digital projects. Sign up here!
What is the Thingscon Salon about?
When you interact with the municipality, you often first encounter a digital tool: a website, a menu system, an algorithm, or a parking scan car. There are important reasons behind such digital systems: they're convenient and often efficient.
But if things go wrong, citizens shouldn't get lost in the digital reality. That's why the municipality promises its residents, for example in a coalition agreement, the human dimension in the digital city. And according to project plans, a digital tool should be fair, accessible, transparent, and just.
These kinds of good intentions are formulated before or at the beginning of development processes, but can sometimes slip out of view along the way. During procurement, development and implementation, choices are made that later seem to clash with the original intentions.
How do we design so that good intentions remain leading not just at the beginning, but also during execution?
During this ThingsCon Salon, we explore how to give good intentions a lasting place in government digital projects. Using one or two case studies, we'll develop concrete methods in a workshop to make intentions tangible and maintain them throughout the entire process – from administrative agenda to technical implementation and practical, daily use.
This Salon is co-organized by the 'Human Values for Smarter Cities' project from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Smart City The Hague. The program consists of a workshop and several speakers.
Tessa Steenkamp and Mike de Kreek will host the workshop.
Date: Wednesday October 29th
Time: 16:00-19:00
Location: Infopunt Scheveningen
Luka de Koe,
Technical Specialist Circular Mobility
at Cenex NL,
posted
Urban Clean Air Roundtable
I'm reaching out to warmly invite you to join an upcoming roundtable we’re organizing on Tuesday June 17th focused on clean air in cities (Flyer is attached).
Given Amsterdam InChange's strong role in engaging professionals and communities in environmental monitoring, we believe your perspective would be highly valuable in the conversation. We also see this as a great opportunity to share your work and connect with other researchers, policy makers, and civil society actors active in the clean air space.
The content is a round table session, in which we share what is being worked on and what possible future developments are from different perspectives. The program for the day:
- 11:00 Welcome
- 11:15 Introduction
- 11:30 Presentations on current research/ policies
- 12:45 Lunch
- 13:30 Brainstorm: what-else-can-we-do-and-who-would-we-need-for-that?
- 14:45 Closing up with ten-agreements-plan
We still have a few speaking opportunities available, so if you or someone from your team would be interested in presenting your work or simply joining the discussion, we’d be delighted. Please feel free to email me or my colleague Sanne (sanne.van.breukelen@cenexgroup.nl) directly if you'd like more details or if you’d like to participate.
Thanks for sharing, you can read some more Smart-City articles on my medium.com/@julien.carbonnell
I think limiting smart solutions to digital solutions is not very smart. Minimum resources, quality of life for sure!
There are many analog solutions that are shoved aside as digital is trendy.
A digital billboard is a great example. Sounds great- no printing, no paper but the amount of energy used for one two sided object (bus halt poster) consumes as much energy as 4 average Dutch homes. That is not using minimum resources and is in my opinion, not very smart.
Natural media uses natural materials, generates very little waste and can be produced with zero emissions production units. That just seems a lot smarter to me. But then again, I am a natural media guy!
great article, thanks for sharing!