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Smart Cities
HOW THE RIGHT TOOLS AND PARTNERSHIPS CAN IMPROVE URBAN LIFE BABLE is helping citizens, the private sector and public authorities work more coherently together to implement smart technologies and co-create solutions. Here, Tamlyn Shimizu offers an insight into the citizen climate platform developed with the City of Stuttgart and reports on ‘use cases’ from their Smart Cities platforms
BABLE eases the processes of urban and regional innovation by providing a large database of Smart City solutions, helping to share valuable market knowledge and facilitate connections between the private and public sector. The company also specialises in research and strategy development to develop methodologies through services including education and consulting on funding and project implementation.
ENGAGING COMMUNITIES TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE The climate crisis is urgent and dire. Three-quarters of adults in Great Britain are worried about its impacts, according to the Office for National Statistics, with helplessness a major theme in the responses. But how can local authorities inspire their citizens? The city of Stuttgart in Germany is using a digital platform to engage and enable its citizens to act – without depending on the municipal administration for lengthy approval procedures or coordination. The platform for the Stuttgart Climate Community was developed to promote and enable open innovation for its citizens, with a view toward the municipality's sustainability goals. Citizens and businesses can post climate “life hacks” or ideas for ways to act that the community can then build on. By sharing lesser-known or unconventional steps with a broad community, the impacts are multiplied on a scale that otherwise would not be possible. Community platform members can start and join projects, and members can use the platform to share insights and
learnings to show others what has been tested and already done toward improving the climate and environment. The lessons of these projects are also made available
along with a way to contact and directly learn from the experiences of those involved, ensuring that they can be replicated and improved upon in other parts of the city. The city helps coordinate these initiatives by publishing permits and making them easily accessible, promoting funding opportunities, and building cooperation tools to enable citizens to implement climate protection projects themselves. This platform is geared toward Stuttgart’s citizens and their needs, but it can easily be replicated and adapted to meet the unique needs of any council. The platform was engineered by the team behind the BABLE Smart City Platform, which is home to a community where cities from all over the world share their lessons from innovative projects, learn from a database of expert-curated advice for solutions, utilise tools for benchmarking and matchmaking, and connect with companies offering innovation in a wide variety of city-relevant sectors.
