An idea for Smart Cities that engages entrepreneurship instead of large procurements

1. Smart Cities and
Entrepreneurship in the
Mediterranean
The SMARTMED Concept
Yannis Charalabidis
Associate Professor, Electronic Governance
Director, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit
University of the Aegean, Greece

2. My definition for Smart Cities
A smart city combines
 Digital technologies
 New processes and business models
 Better utilization of resources
 Citizen and industry involvement
to create better services for citizens and visitors, enhancing their
experience and overall wellbeing in a sustainable way

3. MED Islands: Specific Territorial Conditions
 Islands present the characteristics of a small country: most of them have an
airport, schools and university, hospital, monuments, tourism enterprises,
NATURA areas and wild-life, sea-life and local agricultural products.
 In times of tight budgets the change needs to be achieved in a smart way:
our islands need to become 'smart islands'.
 Special factors have been analysed, per island:
 Special economic conditions
 Special geographic characteristics
 Development planning
 Unique products and services
Hint: Mediterranean sea
has more than 100 inhabited islands

4. Smart Island Priority Areas
 Transportation
 Tourism and Culture
 Agriculture
 Marine and Fisheries Management
 Water and Waste Management
 Energy Efficiency
 Open and Collaborative Governance
 New Business Models and Entrepreneurship
for local growth

5. The SMARTMED idea:
Entrepreneurship instead of procurement
 Phase 1: analyse the current status in each city / island, develop a set of
indicators according with the ISO 37120 standard and implement a monitoring
system
 Phase 2: analyse priorities and develop scenarios for smart city interventions
in key priority areas
 Phase 3: call for new enterprise (start-ups) ideas, on the priority areas,
providing specialized training towards citizens and SME’s
 Phase 4: select the most promising entrepreneurship ideas and provide initial
capital and networking for establishment and operation

6. Transfer
Pilots
Tools
Thematic Focus
•Joint Action Plan
•SMARTMED Framework
•Training Material
•Prioritization of developments in
MED Islands
•Coaching on the specialisation of
Action Plans – Setting Targets
•Network Building (Stakeholders collaboration &
Brokerage Events)
•Cities Profiling and Indicators Management
Subsystem
•Cities Self-Assessment Subsystem
•Prioritization Subsystem
•Declare your need Subsystem (including
citizens)
•New Business Models and
Entrepreneurship for regional growth
•Open and Collaborative Governance
•Knowledge sharing and Infrastructures
•Thematic Call for Proposals for
innovative smart solutions in MED
Islands
•Coaching for EU and Public funding
opportunities
•Solutions DataBase (State your solution)
•Startup Accelerator
•CfPs – Startups
•Evaluation Subsystem
•Seed Funding
•Experts Committee / Evaluators
•Coaching for getting funding
•Urban / Islands Mobility
•Tourism and Agriculture
•Marine and Port Management
•Water and Waste Management
Results: 1 Joint Action Plan, 1 Methodological Framework, 9 Learning Objects for Businesses & PAs
Results: 4 Pilots for testing the SMARTMED developments
Results: 9 tools for clusters internationalization
Results: 3 Horizontal Thematic Clusters, 4 Vertical Thematic Clusters for MED Islands
SMARTMED
Setup

7. Partnership
Organisation Country Type
Municipality of Samos GR Public Body
University of the Aegean - Research Unit GR University
Municipality of Larnaka CY Public Body
University of Cyprus CY University
Municipality of Novo Mesto SI Public Body
SmartIS SI Private NfP
Instituto Superiore Mario Boela IT Private Research Institute
Municipality of Ischia IT Public Body
National Association of Municipalities IT Private NfP
Cyprus Research and Innovation Center CY SME
Interested party from Croatia: Island of Brac

8. The SmartMED concept can be reapplied
in Future Calls
INTERREG IV:
Bilateral Cooperation Programmes
(Greece/FYROM, Greece/Albania)
Deadline: March 2016
HORIZON 2020: SMART AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES
Topic identifier: SCC-1-2016-2017
Deadline: April 2016 / Feb 2017

9. A practical example:
The “SamosWiki” project
 Students and volunteering citizens develop content in Greek and English in
Wikipedia, for the 100 most important entries (monuments, buildings, caves,
beaches, natural parks, important people).
 The project includes information systems (for managing the recognition and
editing process), electronic training material (how to edit Wikipedia) and
collaborative work systems
 After the development of content, a QR code is placed next to the places of
interest, directing visitors to the Wikipedia Page
 The approach can be enhanced with audio and video, also stored in
Wikipedia
 After that, the team will proceed in developing similar projects for other
islands and also for the private sector (hotels, etc) slowly forming into an
SME

10. And a few more examples from Samos:
 The “SamiakiGi” project: students and local farmers develop a common
branding and do digital marketing for all agricultural products of the island.
 The “AegeanStartups” project: an international startup competition, based on
the core products and services of the Aegean Sea, with the support of local
industry clusters
 The “SamosSocialFund” project, where all students get a smart/credit card
which provides a discount from all local stores, but gathers the credited
amount in a common fund that students and local businesses administer

11. Next Opportunity to Visit Samos:
The Samos 2015 Summit, 4-5 July 2015
 A gathering of experts for a 2-days high level meeting towards new project
ideas in HORIZON, InterReg, Marie Curie and other programmes
 Combined with the OpenGov Summer School on collaborative governance
 This years topic: “Smart Cities and Entrepreneurship”

12. Who we are
Yannis Charalabidis
Head of Digital Governance Research Centre
E: yannisx@aegean.gr
W: http://www.charalabidis.gr
T: @yannisc