This autumn Gothenburg has the opportunity to be named Europe's Innovation Capital 2018 by the European Commission. The city's focus on test beds and Science Parks, where broad collaborations pave the way for new innovations, has qualified it as one of twelve finalists in the iCapital Award competition. Next week, several of the city's innovation initiatives will be presented in Brussels 10 October and the winner crowned in Lisbon on 6 November.
France’s premier business media, BFM, recognised the constantly evolving and innovative urban landscapes at an awards ceremony in Paris this September.
Riksbyggen, Västtrafik and EC2B are testing a new digital service that will make it easier for people to combine different modes of transport, such as bicycle, car pool and public transport. The test is done in Riksbyggen’s housing society, Brf Viva, which is currently being completed in Gothenburg.
Over the past few months a representative group of residents in the Utrecht district Kanaleneiland-Zuid has teamed up to start the process of co-creation of innovations, in the context of the IRIS project
Dr Willem-Jan Renger, head of the Innovation Studio at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, is driving citizen engagement in smart city planning using methods generally seen in computer game creation, as part of an international consortium of cities, IRIS.
IRIS Smart Cities partner Municipality of Alexandroupolis has been identified by the Euro-China Green & Smart City Awards committee as one of a select group of innovative urban centers meriting international recognition. Alexandroupolis will be awarded a prize for its efforts in the fields of energy efficiency, renewable energy and smart public policies at the prestigious event in Ningbo, China, 6-9 September 2018.
For five days between the 20-24 June 2018, the City of Amsterdam hosted one of the largest urban festivals in Europe. WeMakeThe.City was dedicated to a more collaborative and connected approach to ‘making cities better’ featuring 600 speakers and 30,000 participants over five days. Urbanist and researcher Namita Kambli was a roving reporter for IRIS on site.
On June 27th and 28th, the 7th edition of Innovative City took place in Nice, with the thematic "Innovation for better life & smart business".
Metropolitan council gives green light to creation and operation of a heating and cooling network to serve Nice Méridia. It will be the first geothermal network of the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolis, distributing more than 30 GWh to heat and cooling to the entire neighborhood with 80% renewables. Another first: the creation in parallel of a multi-energy smart grid offer, accompanying the energy optimisation of the eco-district. The developments part of Nice Côte d'Azur goal to reach a 32% share of renewables in its energy mix by 2030.
Three of HSB's regional associations are now initiating collaboration with Metry for automated data storage of the energy consumption in their buildings. It is intended to lead to better decision-making and analysis for energy efficiency measures among tenant-owner associations.