Public entities driven robotic innovation in urban areas

Cities present new challenges and needs to satisfy and improve lifestyle for their citizens under the concept “Smart City”. In order to achieve this goal in a global manner, new technologies are required as the robotic one. But Public entities unknown the possibilities offered by this technology to get solutions to their needs. In this paper the development of the Innovative Public Procurement instruments is explained, specifically the process PDTI (Public end Users Driven Technological Innovation) as a driving force of robotic research and development and offering a list of robotic urban challenges proposed by European cities that have participated in such a process. In the next phases of the procedure, this fact will provide novel robotic solutions addressed to public demand that are an example to be followed by other Smart Cities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Towards evaluation design for smart city development

Smart city developments integrate digital, human, and physical systems in the built environment. With growing urbanization and widespread developments, identifying suitable evaluation methodologies is important. Case-study research across five UK cities - Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough - revealed that city evaluation approaches were principally project-focused with city-level evaluation plans at early stages. Key challenges centred on selecting suitable evaluation methodologies to evidence urban value and outcomes, addressing city authority requirements. Recommendations for evaluation design draw on urban studies and measurement frameworks, capitalizing on big data opportunities and developing appropriate, valid, credible integrative approaches across projects, programmes and city-level developments

Integrative secondary-education programs and research in smart cities context

A smart city can be considered as a specific form of modern city that emphasizes the efficiency of infrastructures by using ICT: many early models equate a smart city with the systemic integration of ICT in e.g. the energy or the mobility sectors – while not considering societal aspects. Innovation is recognized as a key driver in smart city, and thus people, education, learning, research and knowledge gain central importance. This paper sums up the relevant national smart cities activities in Austria and provides an indepth insight into the smart cities activities at the University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Technikum Wien, focusing on gender, diversity and citizen integration in the smart city decision processes. Current steps towards integration of smart cities into research and teaching include recently established smart cities competence team, endowed professorship and the planed smart cities conference in Vienna. Furthermore, the paper is summarizes elaborated educational programs at the UAS Technikum Wien with smart cities focus. Initial base for the smart cities integration in educational and research activities at UAS Technikum Wien has been built within the framework of the European Academic Smart Cities Network (EU-ASCIN) project, with the main goal to establish an Academic Smart Cities Network in cooperation with national and international universities and research institutes. Furthermore, the project allowed to build up professional competence in the area of smart cities oriented education and to expand the training opportunities at the UAS Technikum Wien with smart cities tailored Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs. This paper summarizes the project results of the EU-ASCIN project and in particular describes exemplary integration of the proposed educational programs based on practice- and professional field-oriented, diversity-fair approach. Along with the educational approach, UAS Technikum Wien also supports with research and demonstration projects, to guerantee sustainable integration of the smart cities topic at the UAS Technikum Wien. This paper provides information concerning selected, demonstration project “Korneuburg WAY2Smart”. The project “Way2Smart” is driven by the intention to live up to its 2036 Vision Statement and Master Plan. The municipality of Korneuburg intends to rehabilitate two municipality-owned residential buildings, densify them by way of superstructures and annexes and equip them with energy-generating areas, and thus at the same time contribute to covering young tenants’ demand for affordable small apartments. This paper shows the endeavors to achieve the ambitious objectives in terms of energy and CO2- saving in Korneuburg by 2036 and concentration on “social togetherness”

Roadmaps to Utopia: Tales of the Smart City

Notions of the Smart City are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualized as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealized smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimization of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasize the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilizing a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them

Business begins at home

One of the most significant trends in the post-industrial era has been for the home to become an important focus for work. The boundaries between work and home are now increasingly blurred, reversing the forces of the industrial era in which places deemed suitable for each were clearly demarcated and physically separate. The most recent published figures available from the Labour Force Survey (2005)1 indicate that 3.1m people now work mainly from home, 11% of the workforce. This represents a rise from 2.3m in 1997 (9% of the workforce), a 35% increase. The majority of homeworkers (2.4m or 77% of the total) are 'teleworkers' – people who use computers and telecommunications to work at home. The number of teleworkers has increased by 1.5m between 1997 and 2005, a 166% increase. Clearly, it is the growth in the number of teleworkers which is driving the increase in homeworking

A Tale of Evaluation and Reporting in UK Smart Cities

Global trends towards urbanisation are associated with wide-ranging challenges and opportunities for cities. Smart technologies create new opportunities for a range of smart city development and regeneration programmes designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges concentrated in cities. Whilst smart city programmes have received much publicity, there has been much less discussion about evaluation of smart city programmes and the measurement of their outcomes for cities. Existing evaluation approaches have been criticised as non-standard and inadequate, focusing more on implementation processes and investment metrics than on the impacts of smart city programmes on strategic city outcomes and progress. To examine this, the SmartDframe project conducted research on city approaches to the evaluation of smart city projects and programmes, and reporting of impacts on city outcomes. This included the ‘smarter’ UK cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough. City reports and interviews with representative local government authorities informed the case study analysis. The report provides a series of smart city case studies that exemplify contemporary city practices, offering a timely, insightful contribution to city discourse about best practice approaches to evaluation and reporting of complex smart city projects and programmes

Challenges and opportunities to develop a smart city: A case study of Gold Coast, Australia

With the rapid growth of information and communication technologies, there is a growing interest in developing smart cities with a focus on the knowledge economy, use of sensors and mobile technologies to plan and manage cities. The proponents argue that these emerging technologies have potential application in efficiently managing the environment and infrastructure, promoting economic development and actively engaging the public, thus contributing to building safe, healthy, sustainable and resilient cities. However, are there other important elements in addition to technologies which can contribute to the creation of smart cities? What are some of the challenges and opportunities for developing a smart city? This paper aims to answer these questions by developing a conceptual framework for smart cities. The framework is then applied to the city of Gold Coast to identify challenges and opportunities for developing the city into a ‘smart city’. Gold Coast is a popular tourist city of about 600,000 populations in South East Queensland, Australia, at the southern end of the 240km long coastal conurbation that is centred by Brisbane. Recently, IBM has nominated Gold Coast as one of the three cities in Australia for its Smarter Cities Challenge Grant. The grant will provide the Gold Coast City Council with the opportunity to collaborate with a group of experts from IBM to develop strategies for enhancing its ICT arrangements for disaster response capabilities. Gold Coast, meanwhile, has potential to diversify its economy from being centred on tourism to a knowledge economy with focus on its educational institutions, investments in cultural precincts and high quality lifestyle amenities. These provide a unique opportunity for building Gold Coast as an important smart city in the region. As part of the research methodology, the paper will review relevant policies of the council. Finally, lessons will be drawn from the case study for other cities which seek to establish themselves as smart cities

City Lab Lisbon - Development of a smart roadmap for the city of the future

Lisbon is a city with more than half a million inhabitants and one of the most touristic capitals in Western Europe, constantly trying to find ways to deal with challenges in a smart and sustainable manner. How to turn Lisbon into a more inclusive, connected, and resilient city going into the future, is the question that researchers in the Fraunhofer project, Morgenstadt, are trying to solve. Lisbon has developed a city development strategy for the next decades, defining goals that aim to create more employment, attract more people and to become a more liveable city. This last goal does not only include the improvements in living standards of citizens, but addresses topics such as new mobility concepts, renewal of old buildings, increased energy efficiency, among others. All this can be fostered by using more participative approaches and an extensive exploration of the local resources to stimulate the economy and incentivize local innovation. The question that arises is how to get there? How to make Lisbon a more liveable and attractive city not only for tourists but especially for its citizens and workers? This paper is based on an interdisciplinary project in the form of a so-called “City lab” that began in September 2015 in the context of the ongoing long-term research project called “Morgenstadt: City Insights” initiated by the Fraunhofer Society. This paper therefore first provides a general introduction into the smart city concept (chapter 2) and an overview over the initial position of Lisbon in this regard (chapter 3). In a next step, the research methodology applied in the City Lab will be outlined, dividing the analysis process (chapter 4) and the project development process (chapter 5). In the following the results of the city lab Lisbon will be presented. While the first part of results concentrates on key outcomes such as the sensitivity analysis and exemplary sector specific results (chapter 6), the second part will provide an overview over the developed projects to foster a smart and sustainable development of Lisbon (chapter 7). According to the identified challenges and opportunities in chapter 6 that reveal a good level of smartness among the different sectors, the projects presented in chapter 7 will specifically address the strengthening of interdisciplinary and cross-department as well as cross -stakeholder cooperation, which has been identified as Lisbons key challenge

Trends in Smart City Development

This report examines the meanings and practices associated with the term 'smart cities.' Smart city initiatives involve three components: information and communication technologies (ICTs) that generate and aggregate data; analytical tools which convert that data into usable information; and organizational structures that encourage collaboration, innovation, and the application of that information to solve public problems

A responsive architectural strategy for the generations of smart communities: an integrated tech hub in Welbedacht, Durban.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The social and economic development of peri-urban communities are often overlooked by government contributing to a centralized development approach. This approach encourages migration to areas with more opportunity, preventing development of the underserved community. The uneven distribution of developmental resources and facilities leads to the manifestation of the assumption that opportunities to progress are centralized to certain areas of the city. This divide affects the communities’ morale to empower themselves within their locale thereby hindering their development and growth. In order for South Africa to foster a developmental state, it is vital to create initiatives in underserved peri-urban communities such as Welbedacht, that are more inclusive and empower individuals to control their own development. The theories presented in this research is an attempt to understand how architecture, responding to current issues in peri-urban communities, can act as a social agency for change to help enable, integrate and empower underserved peri-urban communities. Answering the research question, “What is the role of the built environment in enabling, integrating and empowering communities?” Place theories are applied to understanding people; linkage theories are applied in order to understand the needed infrastructure and theories of Socio-Ecological Resilience is applied in order to understand the design principles needed to achieve a holistically responsive architecture. Unilaterally connected, the theories will be applied so that connection between the theories provide a design strategy for sustainable development of smart peri-urban communities Explored in the research is architectural examples that encompass the principles identified through literature review, tectonic, technique and technology. Although the context of the precedent has similarities, no site is the same and therefore the community of Welbedacht is explored in detail (social, economic and environmental context). With an aim of sustainable development, the research focuses on a design outcome to encourage and facilitate active participation of citizens in the development of their communities