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How can Nordic cities use data driven planning to promote green areas and urban gardening? And how could they leverage crowdsensing and tracking data to develop more healthy and resilient cities?

Nordic Smart City Network is attending the Nordic Edge Expo - the leading smart city event in the Nordics, live from six stages on a custom-built platform.

Join us at this roundtable, when cities in the Nordic Smart City Network pose specific challenges to a cross-disciplinary group of some of the most innovative Danish organizations in urban development.  The roundtable will be facilitated by the BLOXHUB Urban Partnerships team.

Sign up here: https://nordicedge.org/expo/buy-tickets/

Can we develop a joint Nordic smart city model as a human-centred alternative to the American and Chinese models? The answer is yes. Municipalities and organizations from all over the Nordic countries are now working together to define a smart city model based on Nordic social values.

The ambition of the Nordic smart city model is to strengthen the Nordic region's position as a leading smart city region globally, by offering an alternative smart city model that puts the quality of life of its citizens at the centre. Furthermore, the roadmap aims to optimize strategies for smart city development through best practices and strategic partnerships with companies. 

At the core of this initiative, funded by Nordic Innovation, is a global need for an alternative, citizen-centred smart city model. Nordic region characteristics such as high-quality public services, extensive user data, high levels of trust in public organizations, transparency in decisions, citizen participation and respect for privacy make Nordic municipalities and cities an ideal starting point for an alternative, citizen-centric smart city model. 

Nordic smart city model

Based on already existing smart city initiatives and strategies in the Nordic countries, including the Norwegian National Roadmap for Smart and Sustainable Cities and Communities, the Nordic countries will co-develop a united Nordic smart city model. The roadmap will serve as a framework for smart city work that allows being exported in the Nordic region and beyond. The model will describe how Nordic cities and municipalities can act as drivers and facilitators for collaborative processes, and use new technology while protecting and putting forward the interests of the inhabitants.

Malin Koch Hansen, senior adviser at DOGA and project lead of the Nordic smart city model stresses the importance of the roadmap:

– Especially in the current situation concerning Covid-19, it is now more relevant than ever to stimulate the development of the smart, sustainable and resilient cities and communities of the future. 

– The ambition is to strengthen globally, the Nordic countries collective position as a leading smart city region by offering an alternative smart city model that puts the quality of life of its citizens at the centre, says Malin Koch Hansen.

The Nordic Smart City Network takes part in the process of defining and describing the Nordic smart city model and will also participate in identifying best practices, including tools, processes and solutions. We will furthermore contribute to identifying projects from each Nordic country that demonstrate the model in practice. These projects will be showcased in selected international arenas. Nordic Smart City Network’s main role in the process will be to present and promote the Nordic smart city model and cases through selected international platforms and events in 2021. 

The following actors are behind the initiative

Nordic Smart City Network

Nordic Edge

Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA)

Danish Design Center

Danish Architecture Center

BLOXHUB

Demos Helsinki

Iceland Design and Architecture

Nordic Urban Resilience Institute

The Nordic Smart City Network is working on four collaboration projects within Nordic Innovations' Health program, “Health, Demography and Quality of Life”. The four projects will test new innovative practices to tackle health effects in future urban areas. 

By sharing knowledge and learnings from innovation projects and by collaborating with private businesses, the Nordic cities will scale successful projects within their city to other partner cities. 

The Nordic Cities will collaborate on: Coordinating innovation projects on e.g. mobility, citizen engagement, data intelligence etc., help develop a new joint Nordic Marked within the field of Smart Cities, sharing information about relevant companies to support projects and activities amongst Nordic cities. 

The four selected projects are: 

Reduction in pollution

Lead City: Tórshavn

Participating cities: Stockholm, Copenhagen, Reykjavík, Stavanger

The project aims to reduce exposure to pollution, improve traffic flow, ensure safer and healthier cities and increase information to the public. Tórshavn will use data to enable better flow in traffic for busses, cars, bikes and pedestrians. By collecting and evaluating the methods used in the Nordic Cities, Tórshavn will measure traffic and pollution and the initiatives to minimize exposure to pollution. One or two solutions will be tested in 1-3 cities.

Healthy liveable neighbourhoods 

Lead: Forum Virium Helsinki

Participating cities: Vantaa, Stavanger, Copenhagen, Kristiansand

This nordic collaboration project focuses on more “edible”, green and inclusive neighbourhoods. The project explores the elements of liveable healthy neighbourhoods from the perspectives green infra and foodscapes to support the wellbeing, activity and inclusivity of residents.

We gather the nordic cities to collect and share insights on using participatory tools and data to support urban planning. Furthermore, the cities seek to explore the topics together through an open call for agile pilots seeking both digital tools to support urban planning as well as innovative block level solutions. 

Crowdsensed Data to Support Healthy Liveable Cities

Lead city: Stavanger

Participating cities: Aarhus, Vejle, Helsinki and Copenhagen

The objective is to explore and map public health data that can be gathered in large volumes with the help from engaged citizens. The project aims to generate insights and start a nordic collaboration for data collection. Data is already being gathered in large amounts by citizens but is locked in separate devices and rarely used in urban decision making. There is a desire to unlock data from personal activity trackers, air quality sensors, and other sensors that can improve public health. Besides being relevant in urban planning settings, it also increases awareness about our health and the health of our cities.

Health Data

Lead city: Tampere

Participating cities: Syddjurs, Vejle, Torshavn, Espoo

The purpose of Tampere’s project is to get a holistic view of health data by combining public and private data sources. This will enable individuals to improve their health and support healthcare organizations to create better and more effective services. As real-time information increases, data can be used to create predictive and prescriptive healthcare, which allows for more time and more cost-efficient healthcare services. The collecting of health data provides Tampere with great opportunities for research, innovation, businesses and development.

The Nordic Smart City Network (NSCN) received funding for a new collaboration project, Nordic Healthy Cities, that runs until April 2022. The project has a total budget of 10.200.000 NOK of which 5.000.000 NOK is direct funding from Nordic Innovation.

The aim is to create supportive urban environments and living, to improve health and quality of life, and thus support Nordic Innovation’s vision of a sustainable and integrated health region. NSCN will cooperate with private companies to deliver sustainable solutions to deal with the health challenges brought by increased urbanization. 

Today, more than half of the population in the world lives in urban areas. By 2050, the UN predicts that this number will increase to about two-thirds of the world’s population. As a result, the cities of tomorrow will be dense and above all, congested. In other words, sustainable development cannot be achieved if we do not change the way we organize and build our cities. 

The Nordic Healthy Cities project serves to mitigate and prevent health challenges and set the public sector as a driver of innovation in close partnership with private companies. Efficient urban planning and management practices must be in place to deal with the health and wellbeing challenges brought by urbanization. Data-driven development of the urban environment serves to improve health and the quality of life, as well as functional city developments such as climate protection initiatives. 

The Nordic Smart City Network brings together 20 cities from 5 Nordic countries that will soon decide on 5 collaboration projects. The cities are now developing and sharing project ideas that will lead to a final decision before summer 2020. The 5 projects will test new innovative practices to tackle health effects in future urban areas. It is of great importance to both NSCN and Nordic Innovation that the projects are innovative and prioritize the transfer of learning to other Nordic cities and potentially other and bigger markets. By sharing knowledge and learnings from innovation projects and by collaborating with private businesses, the Nordic cities will scale successful projects within their city to other partner cities. Individually, each of the Nordic cities might be a small player in the global arena, but together in the network we gain a critical mass, a safe environment to experiment and try new solutions, and a place to share learnings that can benefit the whole region.