Hello Amsterdam Smart City Community! I'm an American living in Amsterdam for a few months, and while I'm here, I'm writing a weekly blog for the John Adams Institute. This week, I wrote about the economic and cultural impact of tourism in cities. I'd welcome any feedback you might have!
Michiel Bontenbal will give a practical update on running open source LLM’s locally
De workshop is in het Engels maar we spreken ook Nederlands!
Join us for the workshop: Civic Sousveillance & Democratic Oversight of Sensor Technology.
In this interactive workshop, we explore democratic oversight of camera detection and other urban sensors: from citizen initiatives such as the On Camera pocket guide and smart city camera-spotting tours to current policies on data collection in public space.
With contributions by Tom van Arman & Mike de Kreek from the Human Values for Smarter Cities research project, Inge Janse & Arthur De Jaeger from Centre for BOLD Cities, and council member Elisabeth IJmker from GroenLinks-PvdA. Next to talks we will also go outside for a joint camera-spotting tour around Arcam.
Date: Thursday, January 29, 2026
Time: 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Location: Arcam
Address: Prins Hendrikkade 600
Language: Dutch
Registration: free, but mandatory via the registration form which is here
More info on the Human Values for Smarter Cities research project is here
Join us to learn to understand the concept of MeshCore, an open source, off grid, decentralized, mesh network build to run on affordable low-power devices!
Prepare and configure your own device as to contribute to Amsterdam wide coverage, or just for fun / to chat:-)
The workshop is based on this device: https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005007752194012.html Of course you may bring a different device, it only might take a little extra effort on your part if the settings are different. We will try to help of course!
For more info and rsvp: https://sensemakersams.org/events/
The workshop is from 19-21h in the Makerspace of the OBA and you can just walk in!
OBA: Oosterdokskade 143, 1011DL Amsterdam
Hi @rosstilchin , nice blog about our Venice of the North! You're putting your finger on the sore spot. So let me point out a positive thing too: isn't tourism also showing that worldwide the middle class is getting stronger and stronger? More and more people have the ability to travel and to visit interesting places and ultimately, to meet with strangers. (although this last bit may be something for the more adventurous who dart part Venice or Amsterdam).
Hi @melihgezer ! Thanks very much for your comment. Indeed, in writing this piece, I'd also come across Barcelona's effort to limit the impact of tourism. Such an interesting issue--yet another instance of globalization totally changing the context in which cities operate.
Thanks for the great post. I had come across the same issue in Barcelona, here is a link to the article. Probably above 10% of Amsterdam's GDP also comes from Tourism. While many cities admire Amsterdam, Barcelona and the likes, too much of tourism (everything) is likely to be an issue:)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/27/barcelona-cracks-down-on-tourist-numbers-with-accommodation-law