The Living-in.EU Open Supporters Meeting held online on June 6th aimed to provide stakeholders with an understanding of the needs and requirements of signatories and how they can contribute to the development of the CitiVerse – a collaborative platform for a city-simulated metaverse.
The meeting shared ongoing calls, news, and the significance of the standardisation (especially for MIMs and the CitiVerse development path), through different approaches, including perspectives from companies and exploring the roadmap to achieving digital solutions able to tackle a growing range of interconnected challenges.
The fruitful event presented cases that are already unfolding the foundations of a CitiVerse based on the Living-in.EU movement, supporting simultaneously the economic and social benefits of digital transformation in cities.
Text: Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação Image: Living-in.EU
Josephine Di Pino, Project Manager of CommuniCity; Margarida Campolargo, Community and Project Coordinator at OASC; and Kristina Khutsishvili, Researcher at the University of Amsterdam and CommuniCity Work Package Leader, presented the project at the event, which focused on engaging panel discussions and workshops about the Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs).
The session in which the representatives were present covered a wide range of interconnected subjects, providing takeaways on the intersection of AI and public administration, Local Digital Twins (LDTs) integration and the establishment of governance guidelines, the need for standards and interoperability to facilitate data sharing, the value of cooperation and learning through experimentation, as well as the importance of embracing the diversity of cities and communities in digital transformation to promote inclusive solutions.
During the session, Kristina Khutsishvili (University of Amsterdam) pointed out that projects on digital solutions need to get bottom-up input, share best and worst practices, and focus on co-creation – such as the CommuniCity project.
Text: Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação Images: OASC
The CommuniCity Porto Training Workshop started on June 27th at the Porto Innovation Hub. The first meeting, an internal day for the partners, discussed the process and results of the First Open Call, followed by a workshop led by Forum Virium Helsinki about setting out Open Calls and pilots, and finishing the day with scheduling and information about the Second Round of Calls.
Filipe Araújo (Porto’s Vice Mayor) and Pedro Baganha (Porto’s Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning)
On June 28th, the meeting started the day with the presence of Porto’s Vice Mayor, Filipe Araújo and Porto’s Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning, Pedro Baganha, reinforcing the importance of the project to the city and for the social and urban integration of Campanhã region. The meeting continued with the project coordinator, Josephine DiPino, introducing the project, its goals, and plans for the Second and Third Calls. Forum Virium Helsinki was next on the schedule, providing detailed information about the Second Round scheduling and the Agile Piloting Process designed to support the pilots.
CommuniCity Partners
To finish the morning of the second day, the cities of Helsinki, Amsterdam, and Porto shared the lessons learned from the First Round, and the co-creation practicalities applied, such as the planning of the training workshop with the host city, Porto. In the afternoon, the technical tools for the pilots were introduced, followed by the presentation of the challenges for the Second Round for the cities of Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Porto, and the status and challenges of the new cities joining the project in September.
Field Trip to Corujeira area of Porto
The third day of the Porto Training started with a fieldtrip to Campanhã neighborhood in Porto, where the pilots of the three rounds will take place, and to meet the eight public housing buildings in the Corujeira area. The partners met in the afternoon for a workshop with ENoLL about virtual learning labs and collaborated in an interactive co-creation activity with suggestions for the proposed structure of the labs based on future internal and external activities planned for the project and the Living Labs.
Thank you to all partners present in the beautiful city of Porto for the shared experiences and plans for the future of the project.
Last November, CommuniCity project was presented at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona through our partners European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) and Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) at the European Smart Cities and Communities stand of the Smart Cities Marketplace.
Both partners participated in panels such as “Future City Planning Laboratories”, “The Role of Living Labs in Embracing Net Zero Pollution”, “Are we Ready to Let AI Manage Cities?”, and “Governance and Digitalisation”.
CommuniCity was presented together with Living in EU, the movement in which our project is part of, in a digital transformation journey that started a few years ago.
