City of Tomorrow We Empower Innovators

A city is considered smart when its stakeholders proactively work towards solving problems and creating solutions that provide value to its citizens. The consensus is that if you’re driving efficiency, you’re driving value. Smart technologies can make our cities more efficient - for example, by using IoT solutions. But, as everything becomes increasingly connected, it is important (especially for companies) to think about what (and how) things are going to change.

Is there a one-size-fits-all model for IoT? What are some examples of developments that increase the efficiency of our cities? How can different stakeholders collaborate in the data space, to implement innovative solutions that bring about efficiency in the city? What will happen as things become increasingly connected - and what will the disadvantages be, when it comes to our reliance on connectivity?

Episode 4 answers all these questions and more, in an insightful discussion led by Manuela Krull. This episode features 3 guest speakers: Max Kranendijk, the Innovation Manager at VodafoneZiggo; Shravane Balabasquer, the CEO of Prognostic (one of the 9 startups of SmartCity & IoT Class 2019), and Martijn Hoekstra, Director of Business Innovation at Sandd.

The huge inflow of people into cities has spurred a unique set of issues - it has a tremendous effect on air and water quality, waste-disposal, energy consumption and more. When so many people are living in such close proximity - you can only imagine the effects it has on the population and the cities they live in. This is one of the reasons why the United Nations has established 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

As population density grows, how can we make sure that the sustainability of our cities doesn’t suffer? What direction should regulations move in order to increase and protect the quality of life? With regards to the energy transition - how are energy networks going to change in order to become more Sustainable? What technologies do we need in order to drive Sustainability?

Manuela Krull, Digital transformation expert and Managing Director of the Startupbootcamp Amsterdam Smart City & IoT Program discusses all this and more, together with 3 guest speakers: Erik Rozen, clean air specialist, Domagoj Nadramija, CTO of Transferhero (a carbon reducing and carbon offsetting, shared, airport transfer solution that offers 24 hour services on European Airports), and Jan Maarten Elias, Director of Unica Energy Solutions

Our cities are becoming increasingly crowded. Over 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas - a proportion (according to the UN) that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. With the growing density of people living within cities, how is the security and privacy of citizens affected? What is the impact of having so many connected, IoT devices in a city? And, how aware are we as a society, when it comes to infrastructure threats - are we prepared and equipped to deal with threats to our basic infrastructures?

New solutions that make our cities smarter are great - but by introducing such new technologies, we are also susceptible to new threats. How can we attain a balance between privacy & security on one side of the equation, and quality of human life on the other?

Manuela Krull, Digital transformation expert and Managing Director of the Startupbootcamp Amsterdam Smart City & IoT Program discusses this topic in detail with 2 special guests: Ronald Kingma, founding partner of Access42 (a young company of cyber security experts) and Ara Ghazaryan co-founder of Scylla, a startup specialised in real-time violence detection based on AI.

What are the pitfalls you should avoid when building a Smart City?

When you think of Smart Cities - you think of connected, digital utopias where the usual daily hassles are minimised by the power of data and technology. Today most cities around the world are aspiring to be a ‘Smart City'. But how do you get there? How do you truly become a Smart City and by the way, what is a Smart City? In the last couple of years, there have emerged many lessons surrounding the topic.

What is the technology trap that smart cities often fall into? In building smart cities, is data really the new oil? Is the world ready to embrace ‘digital communities’? Who really are the players in the Smart City ‘market’?

In this podcast we dive into a discussion about the 10 biggest factors that hinder Smart Cities - and how to avoid them, in order to effectively build cities that actually benefits every citizen in every society.

This podcast is hosted by Manuela Krull (Managing Director of the Smart City & IoT Program in Startupbootcamp Amsterdam), featuring special guest speaker Bas Boorsma (Author of ‘A New Digital Deal’ /www.anewdigitaldeal.com)