30 June 2022
5th City Lab

 

The 5th Intelligent Cities Challenge City Lab came to an end after 10 days of 20 inspiring sessions, great exchanges amongst 117 cities and stimulating conversations between more than 350 participants. This edition had an overarching focus on Local ecosystems mobilisation and urban innovation. The event gathered 63 speakers from ICC cities, companies, academics, researchers and other public bodies.

While most of the sessions were reserved for the ICC city teams, certain sessions were open to the public. You can find summaries of these sessions below:

This two-week event also held nine dedicated Mentor led thematic sessions. The key takeaways can be found here. These sessions hosted representatives from the ICC cities of (chronological order):

  • Porto (Portugal) about the development of digital services
  • Rijeka (Croatia) about the ICC track Upskilling and reskilling
  • Toronto (Canada) regarding the Digital City Initiatives developed by the city
  • Singapore about water and waste management
  • Amsterdam (The Netherlands) with a focus on “Building Talent Development Ecosystems”
  • Aarhus (Denmark) regarding the citizen engagement in the green transition
  • Hamburg (Germany) about the Urban Data Platform developed by the city
  • Antwerp (Belgium) presenting how to design the city digital services from a human centric point of view
  • Milan (Italy) with a focus on their Air and Climate Plan

Two transversal workshops were held during this City Lab: on public procurement and on open data.

Transversal workshop on Public Procurement

This session was moderated by Mark Hidson, Global Director at ICLEI’s Sustainable Procurement Centre, which heard the following speakers:

  • The Climate Action Coordinator, Sara Verlinde, from the city of Ghent presented how public procurement helps the city to reach its objective of shifting towards green and locally produced energy.
  • Philip Mortenson, an economist from the city of Oslo, talked about a project aiming at reducing the CO2 emission in the construction sector with a pilot project for a zero-emission construction site.
  • The Solar Impulse Foundation, represented by Myriam Schwartz presented climate solutions that are available to public procurers. These solutions are reviewed and labelled by knowledgeable independent experts.
  • Finally, procurement platforms were presented by Valentina Schipper, Coordinator of Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement at the city of Haarlem, and by Samira Boussetta, DG GROW, who also discussed further the planning of a new platform that will bring together 6 communities of practice for innovative public procurement.

The takeaway message from this workshop was that public procurement is a key tool for cities to implement innovative solutions and reach their sustainability objectives.

Transversal workshop on Open Data

Margarida Campolargo, Transversal Coordinator of the Open Data team at OASC, moderated this session and talked about “Cities needs for a digital sustainable Urban development”. The following speakers then explored the topic of Open Data:

  • Paulo Calçada from the Associação Porto Digital explained how to engage with the local ecosystem. 
  • Timo Ruohomäki from the Forum Virium in Helsinki defined a digital twin and outlined the “Local Digital Twin as a Socio-technical construct”. He started presenting the evolution that has happened in the last years evolving from Open Data to the development of Digital Twins.

The ICC thanks all participants for taking part in the 5th City Lab and looks forward to welcoming attendees to the in-person ICC Conference and Mayors Summit between 15-16 November 2022 at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona.