Citizen Centric

Ken Dooley

The Citizen Centric podcast - Transforming our cities with Technology and Sharing. We explore examples of user centric urban services and our core message is: "if we solve the citizen’s problems first and if we do this with intuitive and easy to use tools then all of the data to make city more efficient and sustainable will be available by default" The core concept of a citizen centric, smart & sustainable city is the optimised allocation of the assets in a city. This pool of shared assets could include buildings, outdoor spaces, vehicles and even equipment like 3D printers or DIY tools.

Episodes

  1. 05/20/2019

    Ep 05 - The Pioneer of Mobility as a Service with Sampo Hietanen

    Mobility as a service (MaaS) is slowly changing from an abstract idea to a reality in a few cities around the world and Sampo Hietanen has been described as the person that has turned the original high-level concept into a real service. He is the CEO of Maas Global and their service is called Whim. Whim is the first all-inclusive MaaS solution commercially available on the market and it gives its users all city transport services in one step, letting them journey where and when they want with public transport, taxis, bikes, cars, and other options, all under a single subscription. I speak to Sampo about: the promise that Whim makes to its users which is to provide mobility: anywhere, anytime, on a whim why the problem of city transportation cant be solved on a map through interventions such as traffic management etc how he first came across the idea of individual mobility plans and the inspiration taken from the telecommunications industry why its so difficult to compete with car ownership how MaaS can compete with car ownership because it doesn’t jeopardise convenience or freedom the role that cities can play when introducing MaaS how MaaS transportation hubs will play a major role in the future of our cities how beautiful and enjoyable spaces in cities make us more accepting of alternative modes of transport why MaaS Global have been developing on their data protection practices with a local law firm if MaaS subscriptions could replace the need to building car parking spaces in city apartment blocks https://whimapp.com/about-us/ https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/smart-mobility/smart-mobility/europe/interviews/irresistible-rise-maas-global

    44 min
  2. 04/11/2019

    Ep 04 - Smart Docklands in Dublin with Michael Guerin

    The Smart Docklands district in Dublin produces 9% of Irelands GDP and is home to the European headquarters of companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Hubspot. The district contains 44,000 employees and 26,000 residents and there are plans to invest €3 billion there in the next 7 years. I speak to Michael Guerin who is the project manager of this world class test bed and we chat about: How the presence of some many technology companies has resulted in tech hubs by companies who aren’t necessarily thought of as technology companies such as Accenture and Deloitte. How the Smart Docklands has embraced the citizen centric approach of Smart City 3.0 Their method of citizen engagement which included stakeholders from the city, property owners, tourism and residents How Dublin’s continued growth and current housing crisis could create opportunities relating to efficient living concepts The drivers behind Dublin’s focus on cycling and their cycling data trial that helps cyclists, city planning department and the local employers • Smart Docklands World Smart City Finalist in 2018 https://smartdublin.ie/smart-docklands-finalist-for-the-world-smart-cities-awards-2018/ • See.sense bike lights https://seesense.cc/ • Dublinked https://data.smartdublin.ie/ • www.smartdocklands.ie • www.smartdublin.ie • You can find Michael on twitter at https://twitter.com/MichaelBGuerin • The triple helix (3H) of university-industry government relations https://urbact.eu/triple-helix-3h-where-are-europe%E2%80%99s-cities-standing • You can find all our episodes at https://citizencentricpodcast.com/ • You can find us on twitter at https://twitter.com/Citi_Cen

    41 min
  3. 03/08/2019

    Ep 02 - Smart City Sustainability with Tom Huston

    Tom Huston is the Head of Development for United Smart Cities. United Smart Cities, based in Vienna, is the official Smart City program of the United Nations. I’m extremely grateful to have him on an early episode as it allows me to explore city level sustainability which is one of the core topics for this podcast. Tom is an expert at understanding and communicating the opportunities that exist in the overlap between smart city and sustainability and ….. we discuss how cities are planning to be more sustainable and what role citizen centric solutions play in that journey. In a very general way sustainability can be split into the system providers and the users of the system. We sometimes call this the supply side and the demand side. From a city perspective the supply side could be energy utility companies or public transport providers and from a corporate perspective the supply side could be the manufacturers of a product or the providers of a service. In smart city discussions the users or citizens are often split into two categories which are the political actors and the consumers of services. The political actors are the citizens that engage with the city government by attending town hall meetings, completing surveys, signing petitions etc. The consumers are the people that use the local services such as the buses, parks, libraries etc. From time to time I try to nudge Tom away from talking about the system dynamics and more towards the citizen who is a consumer of services ……. but from his point of view the main tasks and opportunities are on the system side. He quite rightly says at one point that there is no point in moving people towards electric cars if the electricity grid is dirty. Our chat gives me a chance to evaluate how mainstream the viewpoint of this podcast is and how ready cities are to wield the power of user centric urban services in order to make their cities more sustainable. If we want to people to walk more, to eat less meat or to use shared products instead of buying everything that we need in our daily lives ….. then do we do this by preaching about health or through the guilt trip of climate awareness or ……… can we achieve the same thing by making peoples live easier and saving them time – that’s what we want to explore.

    39 min

About

The Citizen Centric podcast - Transforming our cities with Technology and Sharing. We explore examples of user centric urban services and our core message is: "if we solve the citizen’s problems first and if we do this with intuitive and easy to use tools then all of the data to make city more efficient and sustainable will be available by default" The core concept of a citizen centric, smart & sustainable city is the optimised allocation of the assets in a city. This pool of shared assets could include buildings, outdoor spaces, vehicles and even equipment like 3D printers or DIY tools.