EVENTS

Smart Pedestrian Net project meeting
16-17.07.2018, Vienna

Partners from University of Minho (Portugal), University of Bologna (Italy), European University Cyprus Research Centre (Cyprus) and ASIDEES (Austria) are meeting in Vienna. 

SPN is a project focused on developing a model to assess the walkability in urban areas and to build a pedestrian navigation system supporting pedestrian journeys. The project concentrates mostly on strategic and applied research, with an expected practical contribution regarding innovation and actual implementation.

A workshop will be dedicated also to the current level of walkability in European cities, the configuration and connectivity of the pedestrian streets, what measures can be undertaken to promote walkability and the challenges facing SPN implementation.

The goal is to discuss a model to help European cities to be people-oriented by improving walkability as one of the essential dimensions of smart sustainable and inclusive cities.

 

International workshop Smart Cities in Practice.
Vienna, 31.10.2017.

The day on 31st October 2017 was declared as World cities day with the theme "Innovative Governance, Open Cities." During this day, the international workshop 'Smart Cities in Practice' took place in Vienna. Its focus was on the small and medium cities and their challenges, tools and innovations that are available and used already to make such cities smart and its governance open.

The workshop gathered representatives from many European cities. The cities administrations were represented by Mayors (Kezmarok, Slovakia and Olexandriya, Ukraine); Deputy Mayor (Gdynia, Poland); Heads of departments (Faro, Portugal; Jelgava, Latvia; Vienna, Austria); Municipality representatives (Alba Iulia, Romania; Volvi, Greece). Other cities were represented by private companies from Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and Czech Republic. Senior representatives from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and large technology companies took part in the event as well.

The main highlights of the event are as follows:

Small and medium cities face many common modern challenges as big cities, but some of them are specific to each city resulting from its history, economic situation, geographic location, etc. As a result, there are no solutions that fit all.

People are in the centre of any changes and smart city projects for any city size.

‘Smart Urbana’ project experiment run in 5 small and medium-size cities in 5 countries of Europe: Volvi (Greece), Nisporeni (Moldova), Faro (Portugal), Alba Iulia (Romania) and Calvia (Spain). It demonstrated effective applicability of novel European technology Smart City Monitor (SCM) for practical implementation of ideas to provide a holistic vision of the ongoing complex urban processes and to realise integrated management of nexus in energy-water-wastewater-waste-environment-economy and other areas of city life.

Active international activities in developing common standards for assessment of the quality of life and city management and local governance take place major international organizations such as ISO, IEC, ITU, and others. Some of the small and medium cities are had already began using ISO standards for smart, sustainable cities and communities while the majority of others start to look into its future implementation. There is a need for feedback from the small and medium cities regarding the implementation of the standards in the real-life city management.

Building modern infrastructure, which becomes a foundation for the smart city projects implementations, requires vision, political will and consistency. Cities and inhabitants win from long-term thinking of their governments and governors. Cities, which can be a role model for Smart city projects are not about data and technologies only, but about cooperation and partnerships on all levels of governance and citizens’ engagement.

At the same time data, access to data sources in cities, sharing data are critical points in many ongoing smart city projects. Still, often the situations occur in which a municipality can’t get access to data from own city agency or utility provider to make evidence-based decisions about processes taking place in the city right now. Joint systematic work is required towards the necessary level of openness to make city smart and transparent for the benefits of all citizens while exploiting the business cases that let data be monetised and become beneficial for all parties.

Among such cases presented during the workshop, there was innovative approach offering the administration of public funds and benefits. Based on integrated interests of different players and end users in the city and available technologies, it provides precise, efficient and fast electronic way of managing payments regarding public funds benefits and its easy audit by all parties.

You can review and download all presentations made by different distinguished speakers at the workshop ‘Smart Cities in Practice 2017’ by the link:
https://asidees.org/index.php?id=workshop

Smart Urbana workshops in the partner cities 

Alba Iulia Municipality, Romania 25-26 July 2017 (Responsible person for organisation from the Municipality side Mr Tudor Drambarean). 

Municipality of Faro, Portugal, 28-29 August 2017 (Responsible person for organisation from the Municipality side Ms Cristina Viegas). 

Municipality of Volvi, Greece, 14-15 September 2017 (Responsible person for organisation from the Municipality side Ms Thalia Valkouma and Mr Dimitris Kintsakis).

City Hall Nisporeni, Moldova, 18-19 September 2017 (Responsible person for organisation from the Municipality side Ms Olesea Sajin and Mr Valicov Mihail). 

As project partners the municipalities announced these event and promoted their attendance by different city stakeholder groups.

All workshops attracted attention from different parties such as municipality and utility providers management and employees (energy, water, waste, telecommunication and public transportation companies, IT companies, the educational community and regional tourism boards). 

The participants were presented with the overview of the Smart Urbana project objectives and its achievements and actively discussed the current problems that can be addressed with the digital transformation instruments for the cities providing their integrated holistic view as complex cyber-physical systems. 

A mix of stakeholder groups and their interests made these workshops’ discussions broader and cover different relevant aspects, topics, problems and optional solutions. 

Some representatives from different organisations contributed to the workshop by providing their presentations related to the workshops’ subject and objectives. The examples of such presentations included Orange as a project leader of Alba Iulia Smart City 2018; Portuguese Environment Agency reviewing the air quality monitoring in the Faro region; Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH) about joint projects with the Municipality of Volvi; and others.

One common issue was highlighted by different participants during all the workshops:  For successful digital transformations and representation of the city as cyber-physical systems all stockholders must be involved and open to sharing available data and data source.

The current state of the problem is far from desirable: Sharing data between the municipality and its utility and service providers are not common practice, the majority of municipalities do not have easy access to many data sources (e.g. sensors or meters or relevant databases). Implementation of practical solutions can meet resistance due to data ownership issues even when there are clear legal terms for this sensitive issue.

The upcoming Workshop on 31.10.2017 in Vienna (learn more) is also aimed to cover issues and problems that stand in the way of the digital transformation development in the European cities

 

ASIDEES at SCEWC 2016 Barcelona  

Cities strategy advisors were especially interested in implementation of the international standards for urban management in their cities as guidance to day to day life. At the same time such decision raises some questions to be addressed, such as:

 

  1. Is it worth to implement such standards e.g. ISO 37120:2014 in the city?
  2. What is the added value for the city in performance measurments?
  3. Will the balance between costs of the implementation and the results for the city be positive?
  4. What should be done to make these standards working in practice and know it well in order to help cities?
  5. Where to start and how to realise such task with minimum costs and risks?

One of the solutions which provides concrete practical answers to these and many other questions is Smart City Monitor. This solution opens principally new approach toward step by step implementation of the integrated Smart City concepts in medium and small size urban communities.

To learn more about Smart City Monitor and how it was presented at Smart City Expo Barcelona 2016 please follow this link: Smart City Monitor at Smart City Expo World Congress 2016 (#SCEWC16)

 

The past events information: 

Workshop: Implementing Smart City concept in the mid-size towns and cities in Central Europe

The Objectives, Realities and Practices

Innovative digital economy solutions for Smart Local and Regional Governance, Sustainable development and enhanced Quality of Life for Citizens

 

Description

The workshop will provide overview of the current status and developments in Smart Cities and Smart Governance and analyses approaches to its practical implementation for the next 2 years.

In particular it would address the following issues:

  • What changes would take place if “Smart Everything” appears in our lives and urban areas? In Governance, new digital services for Citizen, civic services and local business patterns, Energy efficiency, Transportation, Waste and Water management, Infrastructure, Quality of life for citizens, Privacy,  etc.
  • Citizens and Social innovation for happiness: Can it be aligned to expectations? Measured? How? What may leads to the achievement of the goal?
  • What were the reasons of confusion between Smart City & Grid in Japan? Case study
  • Urban resilience in times of climate change: Real life case study from New Orleans disaster recovery and its difficulties
  • Best practices, instruments and achievements in implementation of Smart Cities concept
  • European Union Goals in Environmental targets and Quality of Life, International standards ISO 37120:2014 “Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life” and ISO 18091:2014 Quality management systems in local governance
  • Obtaining information about urban life processes in real time: Open data, Sensors, Internet of Things, SCADA, M2M, Urban indicators, Civic and Business objects and services, Events
  • City performance: What information is important to have in real time to answer the interests of local communities (holistic vision, detailed analysis of urban objects and processes, on-going events, assistance “now and here”)?
  • How to make the Local Governance “Smart” and improve Quality of Life for residents while simplifying the administrative burden and overhead for the Municipalities by minimizing non-productive activities with advanced yet affordable digital services?
  • City Map of Life: New Smart applications for citizens, tourists, visitors and local businesses enabling transition to digital economy
  • Can foreign external information services originated and run from different countries present local information adequately and why the municipality should play major role in providing the Smart Community with own Smart City?
  • Making project consortiums for Horizon 2020 and Interreg calls: The options and its comparison for SCC-03-2016, SCC-02-2016-2017, SCC-1-2016-2017:Smart Cities and Communities lighthouses

The workshop flyer to download

 

Speakers and coaches

Professor Hisakazu Okamura, Japan

Prof. Hisakazu Okamura, Tokyo, graduated Waseda University with degree in Commercial Science.He was working for IBM Japan for over 30 years where established and led a division of environment and the smart city in the last ten years as Division Manager. In 2011 Prof. Okamura was assigned to the East Great Earthquake, IBM Global team, as a member of the Global HQ team. Through related activities he became involved with the New Orleans Mayor assistance project “Smarter City Challenge,” as one of 6 members from the IBM U.S. office (http://smartercitieschallenge.org/city_neworleans_la.html ).
Prof. Okamura was an establishment member of the Smart Community of the ministry of economy, member of working team of personal law of the cabinet, regional IT advisor of ministry of general affairs, and now an eGovernment promoting member of the cabinet.
In 2015 Prof. Okamura joined Faculty of Urban Innovation, Asia University, Japan. The Asia University, since its establishment in 1941, fosters a spirit of self-help and cooperation promoting it into the international community. As a professor of Faculty of Urban Innovation Mr.Hisakazu Okamura participated in World Engineering Conference and Convention 2015 (WECC 2015) in Kyoto presenting “Smart cities and Big data foci of Japan”.
Mr. Okamura is the author of “Smart City,” Ascii Media Works 2011 and other three books relating to smart grid and smart cities.
Mr. Okamura is a SVP of renewable energy company for new biomass with AUSTRIAN forestry businesses way. Recently he has presented "Report and consideration of the advanced Austrian forestry industry as a system." (http://www.advantageaustria.org/jp/events/2015.11.05_Okamura.pdf ). Mr. Okamura was appointed to Vice President of "Japan - Austria collaboration association" in Nov. 2015 with AUSTRIAN embassy in Japan.
During the Vienna Workshop “Smart City in Practice” professor Okamura will share his profound experiences in the presentation “The best practices, instruments and achievements in implementation of Smart Cities concept” covering the issues from history of Smart city in Japan, Citizens and Social innovation for happiness; Real disaster recovery and difficulties in New Orleans recovery; what was the reasons of confusion between Smart city & grid in Japan. The participants receive the latest information and understanding of the current trends and potential outcomes related to the complex topics of Smart Governance and Urban Innovation.


Elena Petrova, MSc in Economics, Slovak Republic


Elena Petrova, MSc in Economics, is the Slovak entrepreneur and co-founder of ASIDEES (NGO, Austria). She focuses on user experience design (UX Design) especially in applications for human-centered cities. 

Mrs. Petrova will share her insights how smart city municipalities can integrate user experience design in daily interactions with the citizens improving engagement, participation and efficiency of electorate activities. She present review of the practical recommendation about optional actions which can be realized by the administrations as first steps paving the way to the effective start of Smart City project within limited city budget. 

Ms. Petrova reviews and discusses the topics of “Smart city’s marketing strategies and business models in a changing realities”. As every municipality nowadays faces urban challenges the city marketing can be viewed as an additional important tool for fostering city governance in the transition to new digital economy.

 

Serguei Golovanov, Ph.D., Dipl.Eng., Austria

Serguei Golovanov graduated Moscow Aviation Institute, Russia, with degree Dipl. Engineer in Control systems. He has Ph.D. in Computer and Systems Sciences and currently is the manager of company GOLEM IMS GMBH, Austria. Prior he worked in International Institute for Applied Systems Studies (IIASA), Austria as scientist in the program “Sustainable Development of Biosphere”.
Serguei is the Chairman of ASIDEES and Chief Architect of the innovative platform Smart City Monitor. The platform supports development of complex cyber-physical models of urban areas, it’s integrating with diverse sensors, Internet of Things, automated systems, open databases to run in cloud technologies and enables new set of advanced digital services for citizens, tourists, local businesses and smart governance.
The platform, released in 2016, provides comprehensive yet easy to use and inexpensive solution for practical implementation of integrated Smart City concept in middle and small size cities. After its introduction the Smart City Monitor was recognized as “Innovation from Vienna” by the city administration and becomes the test field for learning and prototyping Smart City implementations in several cities internationally.
Serguei has extensive experience as speaker at many international meetings and conferences in Europe, USA, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Middle East. As UNIDO International consultant he was the coach and trainer for consultants and entrepreneurs in several international programmes.
Dr. Golovanov provides workshop participants with the overview of the current solutions, trends and key factors which are driving forces behind the Smart City developments sharing his experiences of recent participations and presentations in the international events 2015 Malaga Green Cities and Barcelona Smart City Expo 2015. He provides overview and discuss options in setting consortiums for Horizon 2020 calls  
- SCC-03-2016:New governance, business, financing models and economic impact assessment tools for sustainable cities with nature-based solutions .
- SCC-02-2016-2017:Demonstrating innovative nature-based solutions in cities
- SCC-1-2016-2017:Smart Cities and Communities lighthouse projects
Finally he will demonstrate the new platform Smart City Monitor and how its open models of complex urban areas can effectively support digital transformation processes in mid-size Cities and Towns in the Europe and other countries, improve quality of life, foster Smart Local and Regional Governance as well as transition to digital economies.

Note: Additional presenters can be announced prior to the workshop date.

 

Focus on practical knowledge

The workshop includes practical studies, sharing experiences and demonstration of the Smart City Monitor applications focused on holistic, integrated approaches to implementation in cities and towns that save money while improving results and opining new options for economic development and tourism.

The participants are invited to take part in the discussion and provide the vision of the practical issues which need to be addressed in ongoing and new Smart City projects implemented in Middle Europe.

The event highlights best practices for eliminating barriers to progress and instilling a culture of collaboration — cross-cutting digital solutions that public officials can use to improve livability, workability and sustainability in their communities.

You will see, hear and experience showcase demonstrations of the next wave of innovative, integrated technology that are helping cities save money, build more robust economies and enhance citizens' lives. The workshop provides you with opportunity to learn about, see and be inspired by the smart technologies, gives you knowledge, insight and proven ideas that you can put to work right away.

Event details

When: 12 February 2016, Friday 10:00 – 15:00

Where: Frankgasse 4, Eingang Garnisongasse 1090 Wien

Workshop language: English 

Services: Coffee, Drinks, Snacks

Participation cost: Free

Duration: up to 4 working hours including networking

After the workshop: The meeting of prospective partners interested in Consortium for SCC and ICT calls by Horizon 2020 (~1 hour)