How to unlock the innovation potential in cities using data?
Lessons from the European Urban Initiative, the EU tool to sponsor the experimentation of the most innovative urban ideas
This article is part of a series following an In-depth talk we had with the ASToN cities on the topic of using data to support policy and decision making.
Cities are natural testbeds for bold and new solutions to societal challenges. While navigating in the middle of multiple transitions (climate, demographic, social, technological and economic), they concentrate the main challenges but also the assets and resources needed to find new ways to improve wellbeing for people.
Over the last years, the potential for innovation in cities has dramatically increased thanks to the growing willingness of local stakeholders to join forces with public authorities to find new radical solutions, but also to the new technologies that are creating new opportunities for horizontal collaboration and co-creation. However, this potential remain often unexploited due to the reluctance of traditional financial mechanisms to share the level of risk implicit in any new idea.
Moreover, for many years, cities and public officials have not always been in the “driver seat” to define smart cities strategies. Often, those have been dictated by private tech companies, eager to sell their digital products to urban authorities. The focus has been exclusively on technologies and less on citizens and their problems. Cities have been spending large amounts of money to buy digital infrastructures, to found themselves locked in closed environments, highly dependent on assistance by the same tech companies and therefore unable to fully exploit the potential of new smart solutions.
However, when given the opportunity, cities are willing to embrace a much more open approach to technological innovation. In recent years, policy makers and officials are trying to retake the lead, exploring the opportunities offered by new “decentralised” technologies, testing multidisciplinary applications while reinforcing the level of integration and interoperability. All this by making smart cities much more people-centred, collaborative and inclusive. One of the most vocal European cities in advocating for such a radical shift is Barcelona.
Data: oil for different city engines
The key concept underpinning this new smart city paradigm is diversity. Diversity in terms of policy fields where technological and digital innovations can be applied, and consequently diversity of operational tools and applications that cities can use to make the most of the new opportunities offered by new digital solutions.
When observing the work done so far by the Urban Innovative Actions Initiative , it appears clear that, while policy areas such as mobility and land management remain main targets to deploy innovative digital applications, cities are experimenting digital solutions in a wider range of urban policies. Below just some examples illustrating this important shift:
- Social: Barcelona is testing digital solutions to provide poor families with a Guaranteed Minimum Income by constantly triangulating statistical data (e.g. revenues, fiscal information) with anthropological data. Getafe (Spain) is deploying Artificial Intelligence to identify hidden energy poverty (people struggling with energy consumption unaware of the existing support), while Heerlen (Netherlands) is deploying a collaborative platform with Block chain technology to reward volunteering in the city
- Economic:Rotterdam is using data collection and mining to anticipate new skills requested by emerging economic sectors to adapt vocational curricula,Eindhoven is working with private actors to set up a digital passport able to certify informal skills while Bilbao is trying to help local industrial consultancies in shifting towards the new era of manufacturing 4.0
- Air quality: Helsinki and Marseille are currently testing, among other solutions, new wearable devices for citizens to collect data on air pollution. By doing so they are crowdsourcing the collection of data to be visualized in online platform, while raising awareness and opening up data for collective decisions and new applications helping citizens taking informed decisions
- Circular economy: Heraklion is deploying smart bins and captors to track food waste streams (mainly from touristic activities) and valorise leftovers. Ljubljana has developed a new digital application helping citizens to identify invasive vegetal alien species harming the local natural ecosystems
Diversifying policy fields of application of digital solutions goes hand in hand with a diversification of digital tools that policy makers and officials use on a daily basis. Those include:
- Decision making tools for policy makers to take informed decisions (data visualization, dashboards)
- Collaborative platform for co-design with local stakeholders and citizens (gaming, augmented reality, online surveys)
- New (wearable) devices for citizens for crowdsourced data collection
- New communication tools for awareness campaigns and participative decision making (data visualisation, infographics, participative budgeting)
- Artificial intelligence for automation of public services
- Data collection and visualization to inform monitoring and evaluation of public policies
This last point is so important for UIA that a study was done in 2020 in this regard [link]. A key chapter of the report is devoted to the importance of data, with several lessons learnt, all backed by concrete examples from cities.
Barriers and obstacles
While presenting these ideas during the In Depth Talk, the cities stressed the difficulties they face on a daily basis. Below some highlights from this very rich exchange:
- Especially in countries that are trying to catch up the digital gap, there is a risk of an over-centralizationby national governments in deploying digital infrastructures (and managing the flow of data). This scenario, while it might present benefit in terms of economy of scale clashes with an open and collaborative paradigm for smart cities. And it can reduce the degree of interoperability essential for this new paradigm. Networks and coalitions of cities such as ASToN need to be vocal in advocating for the right balance between centralized and decentralized approaches while small scale pilots led by cities can be extremely helpful to show the potential for a diversified deployment of urban digital solutions
- Another key barrier is represented by the lack, within local administrations, of the right skillsneeded to support such a radical transition. Cities need to move away from the over-reliance on the assistance provided by tech companies and invest on the human capital needed to collect, analyse and make (public) sense of data. This implies dedicating resources to attract talents, changing recruitment processes, recognizing informal/lateral skills but also investing in capacity building for public officials. Here again the ASToN experience can be particularly helpful in terms of peer learning.
- Finally yet importantly, several cities expressed their concerns regarding data ownership and privacy. This is an essential aspect. Even more considering that data extraction and dispossession are key mechanism for a new emerging form of capitalism dominated by big tech companies. One way of addressing this issue is to enforce new regulations increasing the capacities of individuals to be informed and eventually to opt in/out. Cities have a very important role in educating citizens on the value and risks attached to the data they generate while also ensuring, as much as possible, public ownership of infrastructures and data. This is the focus of an experimentation currently ongoing in Rennes.
In the years to come, the ongoing digital revolution will be even more pervasive, entering even more in the daily life of citizens. Cities will play a key role to ensure that new technologies will be open, inclusive and serving public interest.
