Manchester Digital Development Agency » eurocities

“Smart Cities”: the new ‘original, modern’ or the techno empire strikes back

Dave Carter — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:01:49 +0000

Manchester is a founder member of a new European Smart Cities network which aims to promote the idea that, by making a conscious effort to use innovative digital technologies to improve living and working conditions, we can develop a more inclusive and sustainable urban environment. Manchester is working with a group of cities which have come together through the Eurocities network, www.eurocities.eu, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bologna and Helsinki, to promote this work, in the context of the Digital Agenda for Europe, http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/index_en.htm, and the growing European Network of Living Labs, www.openlivinglabs.eu.

These latest initiatives come out of the work that cities like Manchester have been doing over the past 20 years, from the launch of the Manchester Host in 1991 and the European Telecities network in 1993 to the Living Labs network in starting in 2006. The emerging ‘Smart Cities’ network in Europe, set up last year, is enabling Manchester to learn more from those who are ahead of the game as well as to add our experience and expertise into the mix. Local initiatives such the Manchester Digital Lab – ‘MadLab’, Peoples Voice Media’s community reporters and work around open data through Future Everything and others all provide great examples of innovation which the network is interested in hearing more about and learning from.

As ever there are plenty of contradictions emerging, however, about how all this might play out. If you search on a combination of ‘Smart’, ‘Cities’ and ‘Community’ there are plenty of examples of the term ‘Smart City’ being used to promote different cities but far less of it being used to acknowledge proactive activities by or with real people. So just where are the “users and citizens in the innovation process” (as promoted in the EU’s new call for “Open Innovation for Internet-Enabled Services” in ‘smart cities’)? On the receiving end, perhaps with not too much to show for it, is the concern being raised by critical commentators.

One of the best expressions of this found to date is an article from Dec. 16^th 2010 in the mag ‘Fast Company’, http://www.fastcompany.com/1710342/the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-smart-city , which asks the question: “Will tech-powered cities revolutionize the way we live or hand corporations the keys to our privacy?”. It’s a review of a fascinating new report from the “Institute for the Future” in Palo Alto on “The future of cities, information and inclusion”, www.iftf.org/inclusion , which is highly critical of what it sees as “global technology companies … offering ‘smart city in a box’ solutions”. Also in the report is a “Map” for 2020, an attempt to visualise how things could be made very different through grass roots action being empowered by technology. Well worth a download.

EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum Open Event – Birmingham 19 October 2010 (Invitees only)

Paul Hilton — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:27:23 +0000

Advancing smart growth in smarter cities

This autumn, Birmingham is host to the 2010 Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum (KSF) which has the theme “Advancing Smarter Growth in Smarter Cities”.Organised by Digital Birmingham, there are limited places for non menbers to join the first day of this event (19 October) which provides an important opportunity to look at how cities can work in a European context, foster smart growth and innovation.

On behalf of Eurocities KSF, this is a complimentary invite to join the conference at the special request of Digital Birmingham and Birmingham City Council on the 19 October

Aims

Gain an insight on the role of cities in delivering EU2020 and the EU Digital Agenda that are focusing on smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, and how these EU strategies impact cities.
Share thinking with UK and European colleagues on what constitutes a ’smart city’.
Exchange good practice and ideas on cities’ initiatives to foster smart growth.

Main conference closes at 16:35 but there are optional visits to Birmingham Science Park, Millennium Point and Aston University.

Sign Up

To register for the event please click here

Information

To download the conference programme, please click here.

For further information email: digital@birmingham.gov.uk

Birmingham’s Digital Week – why not extend your visit to Birmingham?

The EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum is just one part of Birmingham’s Digital Week taking place from 18-22 October. During this week, Birmingham will be taking an international lead in showcasing the region’s innovation and creativity through linked events that will be bringing together other leading digital cities across the globe to share their ideas, successes and visions for the future. The events will be attracting the broadest cross section of industries covering the public sector, government and business to open up the debate on the impact of digital technologies for the way we live, work and learn in the 21st Century.

EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum members may particularly interested in extending their visit to the city and also attending our public sector conference “Beyond 2010: Live SMART. Work SMART. Learn SMART” which will feature a range of international speakers.

So why not make the most of your visit to Birmingham and to take the opportunity of staying on an additional day (21 October) to meet and network with likeminded UK and international public service professionals?

EUROCITIES partners have the option of attending “Beyond 2010” gala dinner and to join the second day of the Beyond 2010 conference on Thursday 21 October. This will be available to EUROCITIES members at an exclusive discounted rate, further information about this opportunity will be circulated to KSF members towards the end of May.

and so this is Christmas (nearly)…..

Dave Carter — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:58:09 +0000

Here’s to a Green (and Digital) Christmas! Things are finally beginning to get a little less hectic and we’re starting to plan some great things for 2010. In the meantime the Tech Team have put together a great little time lapse video piece of the view from the Town Hall tower across St. Peters Square and Princess Street which our colleagues at Marketing Manchester picked up on in their Visit Manchester blog (check it out!). We’re still getting lots of interest from the launch of the Green Digital Charter at the Eurocities AGM in Stockholm at the end of November, see the Press Release, under the title “Europe’s big cities go ’smart and green’” in the Press Room of the Eurocities web site. Plus the best stuff is yet to come in terms of our plans for becoming the best connected fibre and wireless city in the UK and our modest objectives of halving the price for next generation access (NGA) business broadband connectivity as soon as possible. 2Mbs for all? More like 2Gbs for all, why limit our ambitions? We’ll be saying a lot more in the new year, starting with the NW Insider Breakfast event on Jan. 15th, more details on the events page of the NW Insider website. I’ll be back next week with more examples of seasonal cheer but until then……

Europe’s Major Cities Agree On Green Digital Agenda

Paul Hilton — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:16:49 +0000

The mayors of 14 of Europe’s biggest cities have signed a charter which will commit them to reducing emissions through Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). An official signing ceremony was held on 27 November as part of EUROCITIES 2009 Stockholm, where around 400 delegates including mayors, politicians and stakeholders discussed local government action for a green recovery.

By signing the ‘EUROCITIES Green Digital Charter’, the mayors of these first 14 cities – Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Genoa, Ghent, The Hague, Lisbon, Murcia, Nantes Metropole, Reykjavik, Tallinn, Stockholm, Vienna and Zaragoza – have agreed to:

Deploy five large-scale ICT pilot projects before 2015;

Decrease ICT’s direct carbon footprint by 30% by 2020; and

Create a partnership of cities on ICT & Energy Efficiency to work until 2011.

Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, which is the lead city behind the intiative said:

“Real opportunities exist today for harnessing digital technologies to address climate change, especially to increase energy efficiency. Cities have a crucial role to play in achieving Europe-wide climate change targets in partnership with EU institutions and Member States.”

Today, conurbations across Europe are responsible for a main share of emissions, but they are also well-placed to deliver solutions. In terms of specific measures aimed at reducing emissions through IT, city councils that get behind the Charter will identify opportunities to use new technologies at a critical scale, provide for regulatory incentives, set up new types of public-private partnerships with business, industry and the voluntary sector, and share expertise and practice with fellow cities.

Also commenting on the initiative, EUROCITIES’ Secretary General Paul Bevan said:

“The Green Digital Charter aims to be a catalyst for cities to work together to find creative and imaginative ways to become ‘Smart Cities’.”

The Green Digital Charter originates from talks between EUROCITIES, Manchester City and the European Commission. It represents another step in the network’s climate change activities, which to date includes EUROCITIES’ Declaration on Climate Change; the joint European and US Stockholm Appeal on Climate Change to negotiators of the COP15 climate agreement; and our involvement in both the Local Government Climate Roadmap and the European Commission’s Covenant of Mayors initiative.

View Photos From The Event

Green Digital Charter starts to take shape

Dave Carter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:32:09 +0000

I’m currently in Malmo at the Eurocities Environment Forum where, amongst a wide range of discussions on cities tackling climate change, we are discussing how the digital agenda needs to go green. These discussions are bringing together city decision makers from a very wide range of interests, including environment, energy, regeneration, planning, engineering and ICT. We are looking at ways that, as well as being part of the problem, ICT could also be an innovative and dynamic part of the solution. On the one hand ICT/digital technologies are responsible for about the same amount of emissions as the airline industry (estimated at about 2%), but on the other hand these same technologies could be used to help us not only to reduce total emissions but also to make many of the things we do more energy efficient. So how? Firstly, we need to get our own houses in order and ensure that the ICT we do use is as green as possible, so looking at things like intelligent thin clients, virtualisation and greener data centres is a good start. Secondly, we need to find innovative ways of using ICT to monitor and reduce energy use, such as ‘real’ smart meters, ones which are really accessible and usable by energy users rather than just being used to help energy suppliers reduce their costs and workforces. Thirdly we need to start thinking of ways of linking this in with social networking so that users can start coming up with good content and applications for themselves, perhaps an on-line energy saving co-op or smart metering mash-ups for starters. So, over the next few months we’ll be working with other cities in Eurocities to come up with new ideas and then we are aiming to bring all this together in a “Green Digital Charter” which we’ll be launching at the Eurocities AGM in Stockholm in November. More on the Eurocities website and, of course, on the MDDA website.

Iceland shows the way on green energy

Dave Carter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:28:07 +0000

I had the chance to visit Iceland again a couple of weeks ago for the Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum meeting, what we all know as ‘Telecities’. Apart from the fact that it is an amazing place, scenery, environment, ambiance etc., with great people and very interesting recent political developments with a radical left-green government elected in the wake of the financial scandals, it is also now very affordable, with the Icelandic Krona halving in value against the pound. As part of the event we were taken to look at the latest geo-thermal power plant just outside Reykjavik, it’s already at 60% capacity and when it’s finished in 2010 it will produce more energy than is required by the whole of Reykjavik. In addition this is 100% renewable energy and the only emissions are steam and most of that is converted into hot water that is pumped into every home in the city-region at a fraction of the cost that any of us pay for hot water here. The digital angle is that the country is positioning itself to be the green data centre of the world. This was my third trip over the last five years and it just gets more interesting every time I go. If you haven’t been, give it a go, there are direct flights from Manchester every Monday and Friday. Also take a look at the film ‘101 Reykjavik’ if you haven’t seen it.

A Green and Digital Future? Eurocities in Manchester

Dave Carter — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:01:46 +0000

Watch the Keynote speech by Linda Mauperon, Member of Cabinet, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission.

The rest of this week we’re hosting the Eurocities conference on Digital Innovation and Sustainable Cities.

Delegates from over 50 cities across Europe will be meeting in Manchester Town Hall to discuss the idea of a Green Digital Charter which will set out opportunities for using digital technologies in more dynamic and innovative ways to tackle climate change, especially through improved energy efficiency.

At the moment ICTs have a similar carbon footprint to the airline industry, about 2%, but they also have the capability to be used to support intelligent systems for reducing energy use and increasing the use of renewables.

It’s still controversial though and I’ve had several people saying why bother when the carbon footprint of an avatar in Second Life is higher than that of real individuals in most of the world.

Well there’s a number of reasons: firstly, is this a ‘global myth’ (rather than just an urban one) as I’ve never seen any proof to back this statement up, although it is a good way of making a point; secondly, there are some compelling arguments for, and examples of, people using ICTs in really clever ways to engage people in tackling climate change and create intelligent systems that are cheap and easy to use. More on this story later…

The EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum – Spring Conference 2009

Paul Spensley — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:56:48 +0000

MDDA & Manchester City Council are proud to be the 2009 hosts of The EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum – Spring Conference.

Telecities, as part of Eurocities, was launched here in October 1993 and it is a great pleasure to welcome the forum back to Manchester as a founder member of the network. It is remarkable to think how the internet and the web have transformed our lives and this conference takes place at a crucial time in the development of European policy for this area.

The event will look across three important areas of European policy and practice: the future of the internet and next generation networks; the role of ICT and digital services in tackling climate change; and the potential for the digital sector to play a key role in the European Recovery Plan.

For more information & booking click here!