Smart Cities - Your feedback needed
The European Commission (EC) is launching a new platform to encourage the development of smart cities projects and policies. As a first step a user survey is carried out to ensure the platform meets stakeholders' needs.
By combining technologies as diverse as water recycling, advanced energy grids and mobile communications, smart cities reduce their environmental impact and offer their citizens a higher quality of life. This is not, however, simply a technical challenge. Organisational change in governments - and indeed society at large – is just as essential. Making a city smart is therefore a very multidisciplinary challenge, bringing together city officials, innovative suppliers, national and EU policymakers, academics and civil society. The Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform will stimulate the emergence of smart cities by bringing these stakeholders from across Europe together to exchange ideas, launch projects and improve policy. The two main goals are: Policy input and analysis: Getting stakeholder input into how national and EU policies and programmes can best support smart cities; and Smart City Projects: Helping cities go smart by supporting cities to learn from each other and by generating privately and publicly funded projects. Your views needed! Smart cities only become a reality if everyone concerned is involved. This “bottom-up” approach should be reflected in the design of the platform itself. We therefore seek your insights. Please take a few minutes to tell us what you need from the Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform here.
