Cities can become smarter by connecting through digital, infrastructural and human networks to unlock their potential and harness ideas, technologies and investments. Partnerships between local governments, utilities, innovative companies and citizens can foster collaboration to deploy smart infrastructure and services, while also improving city administration to pursue goals like innovation, investment, sustainability and quality of life. Working across cities through knowledge sharing programs can help them become smarter and solve challenges in a more efficient manner.

1. RUGGEDISED
Dumb, smart, smarter?
Mario Gualdi
TIA SUMMIT 2017, 21-22 September 2017, Bangalore

2. Cities, from dumb to smart?

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Are cities particularly dumb? Certainly not dumber than any other level of
government… but they sure can be smarter, often much smarter
European cities already account for 75% of EU population, GDP, energy
consumption, emissions
But what does becoming smart really mean?
Key observation: the vast potential of cities often remains untapped:
Cities tend to work in silos
Cities often reckon with limited capacity and resources
Society is more inventive and innovative than key city players
Society also runs faster
Cities often disconnected from this bustling complex reality

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This leads to:
Missed synergies 1 + 1 = 3
Increased costs
Lower service levels
Slower socio-economic progress and generalised sense of frustration
Getting smarter thus equals to:
Connecting, connecting, connecting!
Digital, infrastructural, human networks
Harvesting ideas, technologies, products, services, investments, bring
them for enhanced public fruition
Doing so while ensuring coherence with a long term smart vision

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In this sense cities can become a lot smarter and more resilient to the
bumps of life
They can do so in many domains, in all conceivable urban domains
Europe decided to focus the attention on these smart city areas:
Energy
(e)Transport
Digital technology
The EU Smart Cities and Communities programme (https://eu-smartcities.eu)
provides resources to cities interested in experimenting, sharing and
replicating smart city solutions

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To mend the disconnection it is smart to form partnerships consisting of:
Municipal government and all relevant departments
Relevant utilities and industry
Innovative SMEs, start-ups, universities and research centres
Civil society (citizens, NGOs, stakeholders)
Partnerships are seen as “Smart City 101” for they:
Foster mutual understanding and ownership of a common vision
Provide a reference platform for smart ideas/projects sharing
Foster a collaborative spirit and unlock potential
Break silos, build connections

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To smarten our cities we also need to
deploy
smart infrastructure and services
To enable that we need to use technology, sure, but importantly, we need to
smarten up our city administrations (“Smart City 201”…):
Improve inter-departmental communication and cooperation
Improve visioning and planning integration
Improve energy and environmental regulations and standards
Open up to society and leverage community involvement
Foster PPP investments in smart solutions

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These partnerships effectively become the governance of a smart city and
allow to unleash the hidden potential of cities contributing to:
Spur innovation
Boast market uptake of developed smart solutions
Boost investments in sustainable jobs
Save time and money
Reduce pollution and energy consumption
Create safer, cleaner and more inclusive urban environments
Improve public and private service efficiency
Improve the quality of life of citizens

9. Cities, from smart to smarter?

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Partnerships smarten up our cities, but something more can be done
The collaborative, multi-stakeholder nature of these platforms can be further
enhanced by adding a trans-border dimension (inter-regional, trans-
regional, trans-national or even trans-continental)
Provided the unique context of each city and the national context in which
they are situated, cities tend to:
Pursue the same fundamental goals
Face familiar challenges

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The smart thing to do is thus to break the solo-city silo. Working together
cities can become smarter, and can do so faster
Structured inter-city programmes offer:
Inspirational circulation of ideas
Diversity in problem-solving approaches
Broader pool of expertise, technologies and opportunities
Peer environment for policy makers, techies & nerds, scientists,
investors
Comfort of mutual support and validation
Collaborative visioning and planning

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Software Hardware Impacts Models Cooperation Scale up and
create market
Participatory
vision
Capacity
building
Governance Action Plan
City Interest
Group
Orgware
Standards
Business
models
PPPs
Regulation
Governance
Innovation Evaluation Long term viability
Replication
Larger, cheaper,
more accessible
smart city market

16. How can we help?

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Independent research and consulting
institute established in 1971
Supports high-level international institutions
(European Commission and European
Parliament), national governments and local
authorities in sustainable policy analysis, making and evaluation
Specialist in innovation, scenario-making and internationalization in the
domains of transport, energy, environment and knowledge society
Member in over 100 transnational projects, promoter and coordinator of
several high-profile inter-city programmes
Works in team with all main research and innovation centres of excellence and
city networks worldwide

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Assist in setting-up an inter-city smart programme for knowledge share and
capacity building
Assist in the definition of a strategic smart vision (we value participatory
forward looking)
Assist in setting up and running a smart city governance
Assist in setting up an evaluation and monitoring programme
Act as conduit with other smart cities of the world (Europe, USA, China)
Act as conduit with the research world in Europe
Act as conduit with the business world in Europe (industry, SMEs, start-ups)

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ROTTERDAM . UMEÅ . GLASGOW
BRNO . PARMA . GDANSK
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
under grant agreement No 731198. The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the
Ruggedised project and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.
The word Ruggedised means “designed or
improved to be hard-wearing or shock-resistant”. The
solutions that are being implemented by our cities
will make them resilient against future developments.
The acronym is made up by the lighthouse cities
Rotterdam, Umea and Glasgow: Generating
Exemplar Districts In Sustainable Energy
Deployment

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CONTACT MARIO
Mario Gualdi
mgualdi@isinnova.org
www.isinnova.org
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