Building the Marketplace for Cities

Challenges and innovative solutions for global cities edited by CITYMART.COM

LLGA2011 Winner: Report on Worldsensing Smart Parking Pilot

5.12pm 12 May 2011 it has become official – Worldsensing has won the Stockholm Living Labs Global Award 2011 in the category of urban mobility. The winning prize was nothing less than a pilot trial of our cutting-edge smart parking solution in one of Barcelona’s largest satellite cities Sant Cugat.

Usually very difficult to achieve, a city hall has actually committed to testing an innovative technology solution for easing the daily headache of finding a vacant parking space and thus easing the daily routine of their citizens.

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Eight Cities Announce Winners to Solve Major Urban Challenges in the Living Labs Global Awards 2011

The cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei announce the winners of the Living Labs Global Award 2011.

Aderemi Desalu, Permanent Secretary of the State of Lagos presents Living Labs Global Award to Honolulu based Eggup.com

The Award presented the major challenges faced by these cities in the coming years, to which 245 companies from 30 countries responded by presenting their solutions. With rapidly growing populations, budget pressures due to the financial crisis and increasing international competition for investment, talent and tourists cities are looking for innovative approaches to remain competitive. Cities represent a major, yet complex market, spending an annual EUR 3.5 trillion in public procurement alone

The cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei have announced eight winning solutions that were selected by 45 international users out of 245 submissions from 30 countries. Winning solutions will now be piloted in the participating cities, to evaluate their impact to meet the challenges.

In a unique global effort, eight cities joined forces with Living Labs Global to present their pressing challenges to the global business and technology community.

Challenges put forward by cities include the need to provide more efficient and sustainable urban services such as lighting using latest LED technologies; to rethink city services in the light of open data and apps developed by interest groups; to overcome media piracy undermining native film industries through digital distribution systems; or the need to provide financing and support to social entrepreneurs in African cities.
The winning solutions are:

City of Barcelona: Citysolver, by Bitcarrier

City of Cape Town:  Venture Capital Cultivator Fund, by PoweredbyVC

City of Eindhoven: Integral Solution for Urban Infrastructures (SIIUR), by bdigital

City of Lagos: Eggup | Sell your films while preventing piracy, by Eggup.com

City of San Francisco: Open Data as a Platform for Citizen Service Delivery, by Socrata Inc.

City of Sant Cugat: Smart Parking for Smart Urban Living, by Worldsensing

City of Stockholm: Spotscout, by Spotscout Inc.

City of Taipei: A+ Care: Smart Autonomous TeleHealth Care Service, by Netown

Winners were announced after an international two-round jury process under auspices of Living Labs Global, a non-profit association based in Copenhagen working with 40 cities and 450 companies around the world to promote service innovation in cities.

The Award Ceremony was attended by 200 participants from 20 countries in Stockholm as part of the Stockholm Summit for Service Innovation in Cities.

The Living Labs Global Award 2011 is a unique global process providing full accountability in the evaluation through independent experts. The Award was carried out in partnership with Oracle Corporation, Farglory and supporting organisations from around the world.

About the Living Labs Global Award

Living Labs Global is a non-profit association based in Copenhagen (Denmark), working with 40 cities and 450 companies and research centres in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas with a mission to open the market for service innovation in cities and overcoming key technology, organisation and trade barriers.

The Living Labs Global Award is an annual process over 8 months in which cities present their challenges and provide guidance to the business and technology community on future investment plans and needs. Solution providers respond by submitting existing technologies as entries for evaluation by an international jury.

Follow results and the upcoming Living Labs Global Award 2012 on Twitter.
Facts:

More than 557,000 local governments provide services to more than 50% of the world’s population with an annual spending of 3.5 Trillion Euros per year. New technologies can radically improve transport and mobility systems, access to finance, media distribution, social services and other key areas of urban life.

Filed under: Citymart.com | Living Labs Global, LLGA - Living Labs Global Award, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Eight Cities Announce Winners to Solve Major Urban Challenges in the Living Labs Global Awards 2011

The cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei announce the winners of the Living Labs Global Award 2011.

Aderemi Desalu, Permanent Secretary of the State of Lagos presents Living Labs Global Award to Honolulu based Eggup.com

The Award presented the major challenges faced by these cities in the coming years, to which 245 companies from 30 countries responded by presenting their solutions. With rapidly growing populations, budget pressures due to the financial crisis and increasing international competition for investment, talent and tourists cities are looking for innovative approaches to remain competitive. Cities represent a major, yet complex market, spending an annual EUR 3.5 trillion in public procurement alone

The cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei have announced eight winning solutions that were selected by 45 international users out of 245 submissions from 30 countries. Winning solutions will now be piloted in the participating cities, to evaluate their impact to meet the challenges.

In a unique global effort, eight cities joined forces with Living Labs Global to present their pressing challenges to the global business and technology community.

Challenges put forward by cities include the need to provide more efficient and sustainable urban services such as lighting using latest LED technologies; to rethink city services in the light of open data and apps developed by interest groups; to overcome media piracy undermining native film industries through digital distribution systems; or the need to provide financing and support to social entrepreneurs in African cities.
The winning solutions are:

City of Barcelona: Citysolver, by Bitcarrier

City of Cape Town:  Venture Capital Cultivator Fund, by PoweredbyVC

City of Eindhoven: Integral Solution for Urban Infrastructures (SIIUR), by bdigital

City of Lagos: Eggup | Sell your films while preventing piracy, by Eggup.com

City of San Francisco: Open Data as a Platform for Citizen Service Delivery, by Socrata Inc.

City of Sant Cugat: Smart Parking for Smart Urban Living, by Worldsensing

City of Stockholm: Spotscout, by Spotscout Inc.

City of Taipei: A+ Care: Smart Autonomous TeleHealth Care Service, by Netown

Winners were announced after an international two-round jury process under auspices of Living Labs Global, a non-profit association based in Copenhagen working with 40 cities and 450 companies around the world to promote service innovation in cities.

The Award Ceremony was attended by 200 participants from 20 countries in Stockholm as part of the Stockholm Summit for Service Innovation in Cities.

The Living Labs Global Award 2011 is a unique global process providing full accountability in the evaluation through independent experts. The Award was carried out in partnership with Oracle Corporation, Farglory and supporting organisations from around the world.

About the Living Labs Global Award

Living Labs Global is a non-profit association based in Copenhagen (Denmark), working with 40 cities and 450 companies and research centres in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas with a mission to open the market for service innovation in cities and overcoming key technology, organisation and trade barriers.

The Living Labs Global Award is an annual process over 8 months in which cities present their challenges and provide guidance to the business and technology community on future investment plans and needs. Solution providers respond by submitting existing technologies as entries for evaluation by an international jury.

Follow results and the upcoming Living Labs Global Award 2012 on Twitter.
Facts:

More than 557,000 local governments provide services to more than 50% of the world’s population with an annual spending of 3.5 Trillion Euros per year. New technologies can radically improve transport and mobility systems, access to finance, media distribution, social services and other key areas of urban life.

Filed under: Citymart.com | Living Labs Global, LLGA - Living Labs Global Award, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

SFpark Launch


If you’re having trouble with the video, see this link.

Almost a year ago, I wrote about several “parking 2.0” solutions around the world.  One of those solutions is SFpark, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) dynamic- and data-driven parking management system.  It is intended not only to improve drivers’ experiences while trying to find a spot to park, but also sets such laudable goals as improving congestion, speeding transit, and improving bicycle and pedestrian travel.

The theory behind these benefits stems largely from the research of Donald Shoup, an economist, UCLA professor of urban planning, and venerable expert of parking who has promoted the idea that free parking is the bane of urban environments.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Tone Check & Parker App

Technological innovation is all about making every day life easier and more efficient. To that end, two new technologies have recently caught our attention. The first is called ToneCheck, developed by the Canadian technology firm Lymbix, it claims to check the tone of the language contained in your email. Like spellcheck, which catches all those typos and embarrassing errors, ToneCheck analyzes your completed email and offers a read on the dominant tone, warning when it detects a phrase that might be too aggressive or nasty. Of course, levels of acceptable nastiness vary among emailers, so ToneCheck operates on a sliding scale, letting you set the specific parameters for tolerant language. For now, the service only works as an add-on to Microsoft Outlook, and is free for the first 30 days. You can try it here. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Uncategorized, , ,

Tone Check & Parker App

Technological innovation is all about making every day life easier and more efficient. To that end, two new technologies have recently caught our attention. The first is called ToneCheck, developed by the Canadian technology firm Lymbix, it claims to check the tone of the language contained in your email. Like spellcheck, which catches all those typos and embarrassing errors, ToneCheck analyzes your completed email and offers a read on the dominant tone, warning when it detects a phrase that might be too aggressive or nasty. Of course, levels of acceptable nastiness vary among emailers, so ToneCheck operates on a sliding scale, letting you set the specific parameters for tolerant language. For now, the service only works as an add-on to Microsoft Outlook, and is free for the first 30 days. You can try it here. Read the rest of this entry »

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Google’s Next Steps

Image from Wikipedia

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, recently wrote a brief article indicating his company’s role in the “mobile revolution.”  As we have highlighted in our book Connected Cities, mobile technologies already have been responsible for and continue to offer further opportunity in market creation (to the tune of 256 billion euros).  The technology has only hit the tip of the iceberg, and Schmidt notes the next three places he intends to take it.

First, Google will focus on the underlying fast networks; second, on the development of mobile money; and third, on the availability of inexpensive smartphones in developing countries.  Of note in the second two categories are a few companies from our Showcase.  It appears that Google’s initial intents in regards to mobile money are for consumers in more developed regions; it’s near field communication, or NFC, technology enables smartphone users to pay for groceries, clothing, or other consumables simply by waving their phone near an in-store device.
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My war on regional digitized road and transport data in Stockholm

During the years 2006 – 2009 when working in the regional public transport I found an lucky opportunity to fill one of my companies most frustrating data black holes with ones and zeros. But you can’t win them all! Listen to my story.

You are one year old when you learn to walk, you are five or six when you learn to ride a bike and at least 16 when learning to drive. All of us have as a primary means of traveling – walking (and here I include all in wheelchairs) and even motorists are occasionally forced to leave their car – at least to be able to refuel the car.

Although, since the modern era began, cities has focused on the car’s traction, and to be frank , we have built cities such as displacing pedestrians as second-class citizens. When Sweden a few years ago legislated that motorists have an obligation to give way to pedestrians intending to cross the street – then motorists raged and state that this is a traffic hazard!

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My war on regional digitized road and transport data in Stockholm

During the years 2006 – 2009 when working in the regional public transport I found an lucky opportunity to fill one of my companies most frustrating data black holes with ones and zeros. But you can’t win them all! Listen to my story.

You are one year old when you learn to walk, you are five or six when you learn to ride a bike and at least 16 when learning to drive. All of us have as a primary means of traveling – walking (and here I include all in wheelchairs) and even motorists are occasionally forced to leave their car – at least to be able to refuel the car.

Although, since the modern era began, cities has focused on the car’s traction, and to be frank , we have built cities such as displacing pedestrians as second-class citizens. When Sweden a few years ago legislated that motorists have an obligation to give way to pedestrians intending to cross the street – then motorists raged and state that this is a traffic hazard!

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Connecting cities: a Cluster.eu interview with Sascha Haselmayer

Cluster.eu, a great online and published magazine, gave me some challenging questions about our book “Connected Cities: Your 256 Billion Euro Dividend“.

Read it here - Connecting cities: an interview with Sascha Haselmayer.

Filed under: Connected Cities: Your 256 Billion Euro Dividend, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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