Smart City Strategy Articles

“Interoperability” is a popular buzzword in the innovation space. But what does it really mean, and why is it particularly important in the world of innovation procurement? To help separate the fact from the fiction and bring some clarity to the process, we spoke to innovation procurement specialist Olaf-Gerd Gemein, to learn more about this important but also challenging topic. 

Today, terms such as “open source” and “open data” are becoming used in everyday conversations, but what do these words really mean? We caught up with the FIWARE Foundation’s CEO, Ulrich Ahle, at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona to find out more about FIWARE, open-source technologies, and the future of urban data.

Globally, the Smart City market is growing at a rapid pace. Thanks to smart innovations and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for smart and sustainable solutions to urban challenges has been pushed into the foreground, becoming building blocks of government policy all over the world. But what is the market situation in Germany? In short, the Smart City market is booming here in Germany, but that’s not a wild claim; it’s backed up with facts, figures, and well-researched forecasts from respected bodies.

Asia is one of the most exciting continents on the planet, with rapidly evolving economies, fertile economic ecosystems, and bold leadership from proactive governments. But which cities are the smartest in the region? To get an idea, we’ve ranked the top smart cities in Asia using metrics from the IMD Smart Cities Index Report.

On the 15^th of July, 2021, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Home Affairs (BMI) announced the winning cities of the third season of German “Smart Cities Model Projects”. This exciting scheme provides funding to assist selected cities with their digital transformation strategies and smart city projects. The scheme first began in 2019, where 13 German cities were selected for funding. In 2020, the project expanded to provide funding to 32 selected cities, to a total of 820 million Euros.

Michal Lakomski is the Mayor's Proxy for Smart City in the city of Poznan in the Greater Poland region. As the Mayor’s Smart City Proxy, and as the Director of Digitalization and Cybersecurity Department for Poznan City Hall, his role involves supervising and overseeing the city’s digital transformation and overall evolution into a modern smart city.

Under his leadership, Poznan has already made an impression as one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in Europe, embracing new technologies, supporting innovation, and putting its citizens first.

If you plan on providing your services to a government agency, there are a number of things you need to know. Depending on the size, scale, and cost of the project, there are different routes that prospective companies will have to navigate.

Tendering is a form of government procurement or purchasing that involves an authority inviting bidders to submit applications to provide their services. It’s a bidding process that involves government decision-makers selecting the most appropriate bid that provides the best and most cost-effective solution to a problem.

Urban data platforms (UDPs) are helping smart cities to evolve. These platforms serve as the supporting pillars for many smart city applications. They can map, combine, and store data from a wide range of sources, and process them to help form practical solutions to city-wide problems. Urban data platforms are an important part of any smart city ecosystem, taking data from government sources, private enterprises, NGOs, and members of the public, to help provide data-driven solutions that benefit everyone.

Jamie Cudden is the leader of Dublin City Council’s Smart City program. The Smart City program focuses on embracing new technologies to solve the many challenges that the city faces to make Dublin a more liveable city for all of its residents. Using pioneering ideas, involving 5G, Internet of Things, and Big Data, Dublin’s Smart City program has been able to develop and deploy a wide range of solutions for challenges such as citizen engagement, sustainable mobility, energy management, and more.

Since Dublin is a prime example of a smart city in action (read our Smart Dublin City Portrait for more information), we decided to get in touch with Jamie and find out how he helped to steer Dublin into a smarter future.

Winning a smart city tender isn’t a matter of luck. It’s a matter of skilled planning, careful estimations, honest evaluations, a trustworthy relationship, and a solution that ultimately solves the city’s problem.

Government contracts are lucrative contracts, but they’re not easy to land. The competition can be fierce, and unless you’re armed with the proper knowledge, the right product, and a good strategy, your proposal will fall flat before the decision-makers have even had the time to look at it. It’s a sad reality, but it’s true.