‘Open Cities’ promotes open innovation within governments
The success of cities is linked to their efficiency, in reducing transaction costs and providing services. However, in order to maintain this success, cities have reinvented themselves many times through history. Today, Information Technologies are doomed to be the key driver of a new wave of innovation in cities that will lead, one more time, to their reinvention.
Open innovation to create a new product
Open innovation is to combine knowledge from different sources in order to achieve/create a new technology or a new product. In 'Open Cities' this often involves innovations having to do with Internet technology. The following cities are part of this EU-project of which ESADE Business School is the project coordinator:
Central themes of the project 'Open Cities'
The project aims to:
- Promote open innovation from the government;
- Experiment with existing technological platforms that enable innovation in smart cities and thereby save on ICT development;
- Develop future Internet-based services like Apps which are based on an open data structure;
- Create Living Labs, where experiments are introduced;
- Deploy open innovation for small and medium enterprises;
- Work towards a European platform for Crowdsourcing, open data, fiber optics and future sensor networks.
Practical information
The financing of the project includes 2.9 million euros and the
project runs from November 2010 to May 2013 (30 months). The
project falls under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme
(CIP) of the European Commission.