Building an Open City

The six largest cities in Finland want to support the development of new user based services by arranging an open data innovation competition, DataBusiness Challenge. The aim is to encourage developers, entrepreneurs and startups to start utilizing the existing open datasets and interfaces offered by the six cities.

CreatiFI project for creative industries has been one of 16 EU-funded accelerator programs, to promote FIWARE technology and support companies to implement and create new solutions based on FIWARE enablers.

Opening up public data has the potential to offer fuel for companies to make money with new apps and services. The six biggest cities in Finland are committed to opening up their data and encourage its commercial use.

Junction is Europe’s leading hackathon and a converging point for developers, designers, and entrepreneurs from across the world. Held on November 25-27 in Helsinki, the city of Helsinki and the Six City Strategy cast out three challenges around Healthtech, Intelligent buildings and Future mobility for Junction participants.

The SILVER project had the ambitious goal of establishing and executing, the first multiple member state Pre-Commercial Procurement within the European Union.

The Six City Strategy 
is implemented with cooperative projects which enable the cities to experiment in a larger context than just one city. They engage the
 whole urban community to create smarter and more viable cities.

The Helsinki region has showed entire Europe the way in opening public data reserves. Now profitable business is being built on top of open information.

In the third phase of the SILVER Pre-Commercial Procurement the LEA Care robot was successfully tested in all partnering countries. The testing phase was launched in April by City of Oulu and was finalized by the City of Stockport in August 2016.

The Helsinki city bikes, the Varaamo space booking service, the Respa space booking API and the Whim mobility service app are examples of services utilizing digitalization that make urban living easier and more fun. The first Helsinki Smart City Awards were handed out in September 2016 by the City of Helsinki and Forum Virium Helsinki.

Automated last mile buses will enter the public roads in Finland already during the summer 2016 to solve the challenges of urban mobility. Forum Virium Helsinki is one of the partners in the project.

As part of the EU-supported bIoTope project, various Internet of Things trials and pilots will be run in Kalasatama.

Env&You -project integrates new technology measuring air quality and pollution levels to the city. The project also develops new calculation models helping to make more accurate air quality forecasts.

Kotisatama is a housing community for mid-life and elderly people in urban surroundings in Helsinki. Co-living models has been implemented in Kotisatama, where also new smart services and sharing of joint spaces of the building are an everyday thing already.

In Kalasatama, Smart City district of Helsinki Kalasatama, Flexi Spaces, a new flex space service is being tested.

The new Kalasatama area of Helsinki is an experimental innovation platform to co-create smart urban infrastructure and services. This centrally located old harbour area is developed flexibly and through piloting, in close co-operation with residents, companies, city officials and other stakeholders.

The Smart Kalasatama project in Helsinki, Finland, is a prime example of an innovative Smart City project. This modern urban district will be fully transformed into a ‘living lab’ where residents experiment with multiple smart initiatives.

A new experiment to open City facilities in Helsinki sought solutions for a more flexible and efficient use of space.

The Digital Helsinki programme accelerates the digitalization of the City services openly and through experimentation with citizens.

Two development projects for traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn have been awarded EU funding of EUR 3.1 million in total.

The recently completed Nordic Independent Living Challenge competition looked for Nordic innovations to support independent living at home by the elderly and the disabled.

Mayor of Helsinki, Jussi Pajunen writes on open data and the use of it.