Rotterdam sought a better way of ensuring the people who need help receive it. See how data-driven solutions help smart cities.

1. DATA INSIGHTS CHANGING THE
LIVES OF ROTTERDAM'S CITIZENS
PEOPLE LED
TECHNOLOGY
ENABLED

2. Becoming truly data driven is an ambition of the city of Rotterdam.
In order to more accurately identify illegitimate welfare
recipients and increase compliance by both the citizen and the
city overall, they took a new, sophisticated data-driven approach.
ADVANCED
ANALYTICS
MACHINE
LEARNING
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UNBIASED CITIZEN
OUTCOMES

3. TIME TO MAKE A
CHANGE
The city manages the distribution of social welfare to
citizens and has several methods in place to detect if
payments are legitimate.
However, these were manual and the data is not structured
in a way that can create a risk score for each individual.
The city wanted a more accurate way of ensuring the
people who need the help receive it and that there is a fair
distribution of welfare.
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4. BUT WHERE TO
START?
There were
some
problems to
overcome:
What were the privacy issues they might encounter and how would they overcome them
No clear documentation of the data already available
A knowledge gap around database structures
No infrastructure in place where data and analytics software could be easily brought together
Lack of transparency in the source data warehouse
Challenges with integrating analytical tools within the city’s network
Limited experience within city staff of analytics and machine learning techniques
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5. PARTNERING FOR
SUCCESS
The city of Rotterdam decided to reach
out to Accenture and other departments
leveraging knowledge and experience
within the city's ecosystem to find the
best solution.
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6. MAN AND MACHINE WORKING
TOGETHER
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THERE WAS A RANGE OF STRUCTURED DATA (age, living
arrangement, education, contacts, etc.) and unstructured data (transcripts
of interviews/ internal communication) already available of the participants
but it needed to be cleaned and stored.
A CUSTOMISED SOLUTION was built by Accenture in close
collaboration with clients and data scientists (in Rstudio) to be able to carry
out the analyses.
PILOT MODELS OF THE SOLUTION were built with combinations of
structured and unstructured data to ensure the most efficient and accurate
solution was found.
ONCE THE SOLUTION HAD BEEN TESTED IN A LAB, the city
moved on to the pilot phase involving real citizens and saw great
improvements in predicted risk score.

7. INNOVATION AT
WORK
By leveraging Machine Learning, Accenture’s solution was able to analyse the
data from 75,000 people and apply 1,000 different features at the
same time, creating an accurate risk score for each individual based on probability.
The city could then sort welfare recipients in order of risk of illegitimacy, so that
highest risk individuals can be investigated first.
THE FIRST PREDICTIVE
MODELS BASED ON MACHINE
LEARNING YIELDED A
15% IMPROVEMENT IN
SELECTING CASES OF
ILLEGITIMATE PAYMENTS
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15%

8. MORE THAN A TECHNICAL
SOLUTION
This project is the first experience the city had with
advanced analytics. The experience and insights gained
throughout the project were invaluable.
Accenture spent time with the city to demonstrate the
power of advanced analytics to make a real difference.
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Now that the city understands how to further build an analytics
capability, it will continue to invest in applying advanced
analytics in areas such as data management, infrastructure,
privacy/security and governance.
The city now has an ethical solution to profiling and
identifying recipients to be investigated.

9. TO CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION AROUND HOW ADVANCED
ANALYTICS AND DATA INSIGHTS ARE KEY TO TRANSFORMING
FUTURE CITIES PLEASE CONNECT WITH:
linkedin.com/in/auke-folkerts-67a9434/ uk.linkedin.com/in/ceciliemueller
@CecilieMuller
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting,
digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business
functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help
clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 435,000 people serving clients in more
than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.
Auke Folkerts
Accenture
Netherlands Cities Lead
auke.folkerts@accenture.com
Cecilie Müller
Accenture Global Cities
European Point of Contact
cecilie.b.muller@accenture.com
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Learn more at https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-topic-high-performance-smart-cities.