Hello guys, I am seriously needing help in framing a topic for myself. I am currently a MSc Risk student at Durham University. I have always been interested in smart cities and urban analytics in relation to flooding. I will also like to expand on my selected topic for my PhD. Thanks in anticipation for your help.
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Tim van de Laar,
Project management, Scale Up, Innovation Partnerships, Sport
at City of Amsterdam: Ingenieursbureau Amsterdam,
posted
Amsterdam and Haarlem launch groundbreaking sustainable artificial turf pitch innovations
The pioneering innovations were presented of the Scale Up Future-proof artificial turf pitches project, a collaboration between Amsterdam and Haarlem focused on sustainable artificial turf pitches. Over the next few years, more than 250 sports pitches in both cities will be transformed into circular, energy-generating and climate-adaptive sports venues. These artificial turf pitches can not only generate and store energy, but also involve smart water management. An approach that is globally relevant for urban sports infrastructure.
Three consortia collaborate on the sport pitch of the future
The three selected consortia Antea Sport, EnergieVeld and GOO4iT together comprise more than 15 market players. They join forces within this innovation partnership, where there is room for long-term collaboration, co-creation and scalable innovation. The pioneering solutions will make it possible to cool down sport pitches on warm days, help dispose of and collect rainwater, make the pitches more pleasant for the users and possibly even generate energy for the surrounding area. Find out how these innovations are shaping the sport pitch of the future here.
Two municipalities: joint procurement
The Scale Up Future-proof artificial turf pitches project is a unique collaboration between two municipalities and market players. The municipalities jointly procure pooling their purchasing power and use an innovation partnership to challenge the market to test and scale up innovative and sustainable solutions. In doing so, the solutions are also scalable and transferable to other cities in the Netherlands and Europe.
From prototype to pilot fields
The first prototype fields will be constructed in Amsterdam and Haarlem in 2026, in different capacities and combining multiple innovations, where they will be extensively tested and monitored for a year. Successful concepts are then scaled up to full-scale pilot pitches and tested and monitored for another year. This will form the basis for the new standard of sustainable sports pitches, with potential for adoption in other cities around the world. At the same time, existing pitches are already being improved with the most sustainable solutions available, making an immediate impact from the start. The project thus shows how cooperation between municipalities and market players can lead to innovative, climate-proof sports infrastructure with international relevance.
Join us
This project provides cities worldwide a blueprint for sustainable, smart, and future-proof artificial turf pitches. Interested municipalities and industry partners can get in touch and subscribe to our news updates by sending an e-mail to: sportveldvandetoekomst@amsterdam.nl.
Jorgen Karskens,
Project manager Civic Interaction Design
at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences,
posted
Sousveillance: Civic Surveillance of Surveillance Cameras
How can citizens reclaim transparency in a world increasingly shaped by networked safety and enforcement cameras? Join our ThingsCon workshop to explore the power of sousveillance—using the tools of surveillance to scrutinize the systems that watch us.
Networked safety and enforcement cameras increasingly shape urban life, yet their presence and function often remain opaque. This workshop explores how citizens can turn the tools of surveillance back onto the systems that watch them: Redirecting object recognition to identify street camera's for civic scrutiny. Building on several camera spotting tours supported with various versions of a “mobile transparency app”, we introduce a new prototype that uses object recognition to detect street cameras and log them through a civic annotation workflow.
The workshop is for anyone interested in civic tech, democratic oversight, and human-scale alternatives to opaque “smart city” systems. Together, we explore how civic sousveillance might evolve into a deeper practice of scrutinizing—and reshaping—the technologies embedded in our streets.
More info and tickets: https://thingscon.org/events/things-2025
More info on the Human Values for Smarter Cities research project we are conducting: https://humanvaluesforsmartercities.nl/
Manon den Dunnen,
Strategisch specialist digitaal
,
posted
Workshop Meshtastic, configure your own node (for Amsterdam-wide coverage)
Join us to learn to understand the concept of Meshtastic, 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:-)
It starts at 19h in the OBA in the Makerspace on level minus 1 (Junior department). You can rsvp via meetup or by sending an email to sensemakersams@protonmail.com. But our meetings are open to all so feel also free to just walk in.
https://www.meetup.com/sensemakersams/events/305263631/
Hello Grace, thank you for this. I have not started the dissertation yet, just trying to bring my idea together. Thanks.
Hi Peter I hope your dissertation is going well, I don't know how far you have progressed since your post, so you may already know what you are writing on. I am also currently writing dissertation, and have formed my question by choosing a city important to me and seeing how it could improve in relation to my area of interest. I'm looking at urban greening, but if you were to do this with smart cities, you could use case studies of other projects such as the Amsterdam smart city or Milton Keynes (only 2 I know of, though I'm sure you'll know many more) and see how their efforts could be applied in another location. The other benefit I have found of relating it to a city you know is that you can talk to people locally about their opinions and knowledge, and you will have an understanding of the potential challenges in that location.
I hope everything goes well with your dissertation work, it sounds very interesting