Wrap up by Ger Baron, Chairman of the Smart City Event

The first day of the Smart City Event was about collaboration. Collaboration between cities, companies and government but most of all collaboration between people.

The first speaker of the day, Rob van Gijzel , who started his speech on the football pitch of the Amsterdam Arena shared his visions and insights, being the mayor of the most intelligent community in the World: City of Eindhoven. He started his speech with the following statement: “There are no smart cities, there are only smart people”

On top of collaboration he also spoke about disruptiveness and how losing control is inevitable. If this mayor would have complete world domination, innovation would probably be everywhere.

The second keynote speech was given by Anthoney Townsend, professor at NYU and author of the book “Smart Cities”. ”Cities need to plan differently, create digital master plans. And involve the citizens in a very intense way. This is the only way to create a real Smart City”.

Atlantis City; ‘The imaginary Smart City’

How do we help cities to develop towards a real smart city? How do we stimulate progress enabling us to build these smart cities? The discussion on how the perfect Smart City can be created has started today. Together we are going to make Atlantis the smartest city in the world, leveraging on the knowledge and experience of the attendants.

We hope you have already discussed some issues according to ‘The imaginary Smart City’. In the upcoming months we will be creating a platform where ideas will merge into the vision of a Smart City via www.smart-circle.org.

Smartness is a necessity

Back to reality with Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor of business and economy of London. Smartness is not only nice to have, but a necessity. London will grow with more than a million people over the next 10 years, making it the fastest growing city in Europe. By far. With the tech city initiative to attract technology London is leading the way to change the economy. The government acts in the role of facilitator – and the effects are tremendous.

Waste collecting, energy management, water management and using information of sensors has a level of impact where more renown cities in Europe can only dream of.

Collaboration is key, also for companies

Smart Cities are also interesting for companies. Companies like Indra are developing products that integrate all smartness needed for a city. The presentation of Jorge Marin was underlining this matter perfectly.

Besides Spain traditionally also the Nordics do a great job in making the cities Smarter. A great community driven example came from Stockholm. Allan Larson, together with other citizens, took the initiative to start a Smart neighbourhood. Dalkia is one of the key facilitators and is experimenting with new models for collaboration. Collaboration is the key and Open Data is the key driver behind it. Accenture’s Mr. Joost Brinkman and Mr. Ronald van Warmerdam from the City of Amsterdam held a presentation about Transform: An Open Data platform that makes it possible to play with energy-data. Create games or stakeholder models.

The last two keynotes were about…. Collaboration!

examples from all over the world we gained new insights.

The last speaker of the day was a very inspiring and energetic speech of Mr. Rob Adams. An innovator thorough bread. To be disruptive, to innovate… we need to collaborate!

In short, lots of inspiring ideas! Let’s put it into practice! Keep in contact with all of the participants you’ve met during the Smart City Event. Sign up for our LinkedIn group.