Athenshood: A project made for Athens
What is actually a “smart city”?
Let’s talk about smart cities…
The digital and technological revolution has brought about new concepts and ideas, such as the “smart city”. So what is a “smart city”? Are there “smart cities”? How are they built? So let’ s begin with the definition. A “smart city” is a city with digital technology embedded across all its functions.
A “Smart City” uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve its quality and performance and so the engangement and motivation of its citizens. “ The “Smart City” includes government services, transport, traffic management, energy, health care, water and waste”, says Pradeep Kumar. So the goal of a “smart city” is to improve its quality of life by using technology to enhance the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs.
However, we can tell that “a smart city is like a smart device”. Cat Mason , Chief Digital Officer-City of Brisbane (Australia), is worried about applying technology to everything. She says: “My issue with the concept of a “smart city” is that it refers to a city that can be “digitized” or “smartified,” which leads us down a path of thinking about hyper connectivity and data-driven efficiencies. But a city is so much more than that. Cities are hubs of people, supported by infrastructure. Cities are where people come together to experience the benefits of being together in close proximity — access to services and culture are very literally the benefits of urbanization”.
We will name some examples of a “smart city”. Our team (Msc New Media and Journalism, in the course Cultural Management and Communication, Panteion University, Athens)investigated the cases of the following cities: Berlin, Istanbul and Barcelona. Moreover, we studied some interesting cities in Oceania/Australia that developed innovative projects as well, upgrading in this way their status and quality of life.
We cannot desagree that there will be different contradicted opinions about the usability and appliance of technology in cities. But we cannot deny the fact that technology belongs to our future.
Originally published at medium.com on June 20, 2016.
Smart Cities: Barcelona and Oceania
Every city in our world must be «SMART». The concept of smart cities
originated at the time when the entire world was facing one of the
worst economic crises. In 2008, IBM began work on a ‘smarter cities’
concept as part of its Smarter Planet initiative. By the beginning of
2009, the concept had captivated the imagination of various nations
across the globe.
Countries like South Korea, UAE and China began to invest heavily into
their research and formation. Today, a number of excellent precedents
exist that India can emulate, such as those in Vienna, Aarhus,
Amsterdam, Cairo, Lyon, Málaga, Malta, the Songdo International
Business District near Seoul, Verona etc.
A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple
information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in a secure
fashion to manage a city’s assets. Ensuring that our cities are
creative, connected and sustainable is a big challenge and an
opportunity to improve the lives of people along with the health and
future of the planet.
Our most popular city branding case study was Barcelona and Oceania.
The purpose of our case studies was to know how they deal with city
brand development and what makes them successful.
The success city branding of Barcelona
One of the examples of best branding strategies is Barcelona. Over the
last 20 years, Barcelona has successfully positioned itself among the
top cities around the world.
It is widely associated with creativity, culture, sport, gastronomy
and high quality of life. Barcelona has also become one of the main
tourist destinations in Europe, and is a popular place for corporate,
scientific, cultural and sporting events and congresses.
Today, Barcelona is a modern, advanced, cosmopolitan, open, creative
and inspiring city boasting a high quality of life.
The vision of the Strategic Metropolitan Plan for Barcelona for 2020
consisted of consolidating the AMB (Metropolitan Area of Barcelona),
with its model of quality social cohesion and integration, as one of
the most attractive and influential European regions for innovative
global talent.
Under the ‘Barcelona Growth’ program, 30 main economic measures were
identified to focus on. Those recommendations led to the rebranding of
Barcelona from «Mobile World Capital» (the city is host of the annual
World Mobile Congress) into a «Smart City» (Smart City Expo World
Congress also held in BCN), positioning Barcelona as a city of
knowledge and innovation
In order to implement the strategies and actions put forward in the
Strategic Metropolitan Plan — Vision 2020, ‘Barcelona Global’ was
created, a private, independent and non-profit association: a
citizen’s platform of ideas and action, made up by people and
companies who care about Barcelona and its future.
The association’s mission is to actively contribute to making
Barcelona one of the most attractive cities in the world, to attract
and develop talent and economic activity.
One of the main ideas and strategies under the action of Barcelona
Global is how to make Barcelona a truly ‘business friendly city’, as
well as how promote and position Barcelona through its main economic
sectors.
The success story of Oceania
Oceania’s city branding is based mainly on investment in both natural
resources and constrasting moderm cities to explore.
The Australian Continent consists of Australia, and several nearby
islands, including Tasmania and New Guinea. Greater Oceania includes
New Zealand, which is not on the same continental shelf as Australia,
and includes thousands of coral reef islands.
In order to study Oceania we analyzed the most interesting city
branding projects.
The City of Melbourne is facing the significant challenges of climate
change, population growth and urban heating, placing pressure on the
built fabric, services and people of the city. A healthy urban forest
will play a critical role in maintaining the health and liveability of
Melbourne.
The Urban Forest Strategy seeks to manage this change and protect
against future vulnerability by providing a robust strategic framework
for the evolution and longevity of Melbourne’s urban forest. The
Urban Forest program uses data to create a network of information
about trees. All these data are utilized as an educational and
environmental guide for both citizens and tourists making the city
shareable.
Also, the Australian Government developed another successful project
“the Solar Cities program” for seven Solar Cities located in Adelaide,
Alice Springs, Blacktown, Central Victoria, Moreland, Perth and
Townsville. The aim of this project was to bring industry, business,
governments and communities together and to rethink the way they
produce, use and save energy and protect Australia’s environment.
Last but not least, a specific government project improves
Christchurch reputation in order to enhance its safety with modern
structure against erthaquakes and also to increase tourist flows.
Christchurch experienced a devastating series of earthquakes in 2010
and 2011. The result has been a decrease in population, and the
movement of businesses out of the central commercial area.
Originally published at medium.com on June 20, 2016.
Smart Cities: Berlin and Istanbul
The purpose of smart cities is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology. The last one is the one that leads to Smart outcomes.
Berlin
An example of a successful smart city is Berlin, which is one of the most dynamic economic regions in Germany. Companies, investors, science and technology institutions gather there.
In 2008, the Berlin Senate turned the name of Germany’s Capital into a brand name “Be Berlin”, in order to promote the city on a national and international level. Every year (for 5 years) , there was a different slogan and the whole city was working on it.
The campaign’s goals was to define the features of the city, to create a leading location for business and industry and a great place to live and to attract tourists as well. In other words, it’s target was to transform the city into a unique opportunity in all aspects.
The campaign ended in 2012 and achieved to transform Berlin city into a smart, livable city of opportunities, by improving social engagement, technological innovation and progressive marketing plan. The structure of the campaign is characterized by morphological cohesion, by using the same symbols, colors and logos in any special project.
The campaign ended in 2012.Today the city is considered to be one of the most creative, liveable and international city. Berlin inspires as a creative metropolis, as a start-up hub, as a place for innovative technology and science.
Istanbul
Another example of smart city is Istanbul. It is historically also known as Constantinople- Byzantium and is the most populous city in Turkey and the country’s economic, cultural, and historic center. Moreover, it’s a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the sea of Marmara and the black sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side.
In the last years , there have been many projects, which turned the city into a “smart city”. Τhe government proceeded to social development improving the quality of life, to economic development making its economy more competitive and creative and to urban development. Furthermore, they attempt to make the city an environmental leader.Another important fact is that Istambul was improved in public and sea transportation. A problem that existed for many years.
Istanbul is a knowledge metropolis. In other words, it is a regional hub for activities like finance, logistics, tourism and culture for the Balkans, the Black Sea region, the Central Asian Turk republics and the Middle East.
Finally, the city was chosen as European Capital of Culture in 2010. Being a cultural capital brought the city and its cultural infrastructure into a modern level, it became a cultural attraction destination for foreign visitors, enriched its socio-economic development, and so on. During 2010, many artists and cultural groups, both local and international, visited Istanbul at various stages for cultural showscases, events, displays, exhibitions, concerts, arts, etc.
Originally published at medium.com on June 20, 2016.
Re-brand Athens: The Athenshood Project
After the experience of exploring international smart cities such as Melbourne, Barcelona, Berlin and Istanbul, which were a great inspiration, it’s was about time as members of Co-Creation City Branding Project to re-brand our city, Athens.
There is no better way to explore a city than to discover its neighborhoods. Every hidden story, every secret place every side of locals’ life could give you a great experience and a chance to meet the real city culture. And this exactly what Athenshood project created to do.
Athenshood is a web based platform, related to city fields such as public, tourism etc. Through this platform, citizens could contribute to their city by sharing data information and knowledge about neighborhoods. On the other hand tourists could have the opportunity to explore new places.
There are so many unknown neighborhoods and beautiful places in Athens but unfortunately the majority of people even the local tends to prefer the most popular places.
By Athenshood a citizen could share stories in a storytelling way for sightseeing such as museums, places for food, entertainment, shopping and must-see places such as landscapes and parks. This idea aims to highlight neighborhoods and unknown places that are worth visiting and make them point of interest both for locals and tourists.
Actions through the Athenshood platform
A special category named “Actions” will be hosted at the Athenshood platform. Users could share their ideas about smart projects in order to re-brand Athens. All the ideas will be available to all users for comments, changes, corrections etc. Actions examples:
Hi! I am Aristotle…
A smart mobile app enables visitors to explore data and information about monuments such as statues and historical streets, in an interactive way. Visitors could tap and zoom through maps into different neighborhoods or areas, click on monuments and street symbols and names to reveal details and select data. They could also email monuments for example Aristotele’s statue asking for more information. And the monument will respond: Hi! I’m Aristotele,…)
On your right side…
This idea could be adapted into buses. During the routes, short stories about special stations and monuments will be shown through monitors into buses. So as the tourists to be given the opportunity to learn important infos about special monuments, streets or station.
At last, the goal of all our ideas is to improve quality of life and city awareness by using technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs. If we want to make Athens a brand, we have to explore all its hidden sides.
Originally published at medium.com on June 22, 2016.
Our experience in “Cultural Marketing and Communication”
In this course( Msc New Media and Journalism, Panteion University, Athens)and in our roles as “cultural managers” we had to turn Athens into a “smart city”. But beforehand we had to “explore” meanings like “smart city” and “city branding” and the best way was through different case studies and examples of cities such as, Melbourne, Berlin, Barcelona.
Today’s globalized and networked world is a competitive environment. Cities or places are just like companies: those with a strong brand find it much easier to sell their products and services and attract people and investment. However, city branding is not just for tourists. According to Ignasi de Delàs, ECM President : “Cities compete more than ever for private investments, business conferences, world sports events, talents in research and science, film productions, political summits, international students, cruise ships, international headquarters and new airline connections. Ultimately, it’s all a battle for job growth, prosperity and quality of life. The winners get a global window and a place in the sun. The losers remain in the shadows among the non-places of globalisation”.
From all the above, it is safe to tell that the purpose of Smart City Branding is to give visibility of intangible assets (Brand) of any smart city/region around the world. So after understanding those meanings we started to study examples of different cities such as the cities of Berlin, Istanbul, Barcelona and some cities in Oceania/Australia that developed numerous projects, improving their status.
In the end of our “journey” in city branding we used the citizen canvas to put our ideas into praxis. The site of citizen canvas states: “The Citizen canvas is a collaborative change tool to help various groups of stakeholders to work together to arrive at a common vision for what a smart city should be following a citizen centric design process”. Using that tool, we created our own project “Athenshood”. “Athenshood” is a data based platform/application created with the prospect to become an internet community. Its aim is to build engagement between citizens, tourists, neighborhoods and the city of Athens.
This course offered us important and up-to-date concepts. Moreover, we accumulated knowledge and developed skills. We observed modern cities with a different point of view and especially our own city. We found out that team-working, citizen engagement and collaboration is the key to liveable and smart cities.
Originally published at medium.com on June 20, 2016.
Editors:
Kontolatou Marianna
Kontomichis Venedictos
Tsivgeli Maria
Zarda Myrsini
Ms New Media and Journalism. Project: City Branding-Re Brand Athens. Panteion University of Athens
