Amsterdam wins smart award

Amsterdam was chosen as this year’s winner of the Second Annual World Smart Cities Award during the Smart City Expo World Congress gala dinner held last night in Barcelona, Spain.

The Dutch capital won the award for its open data project on urban mobility. During 2012, the city’s Department of Infrastructure and Transport has provided any interested party with the data generated by their transport fleet so as to stimulate new mobile products and applications. With the motto: ‘We the data, you the apps’, Amsterdam has already seen several apps take shape in the areas of parking and cycling.

Cor Vos, from Amsterdam City Hall, told Cities Today that the city wants to stimulate further innovation of mobile services with open data. “Our aim with this initiative is maximum service for citizens, with a clear field for creativity from the market. We aim to contribute to a more accessible Amsterdam with better-informed travellers, fewer traffic jams and fewer cars searching for a parking spot. This would also help improve air quality and potentially provide greater safety on the road.”

Guatemala City won the innovative initiative award for a solar panel project that provides public lighting in the city and for the housing of low-income families. Over 14,00 panels will be progressively installed before 2016 as part of a subsidised housing programme through public-private financing. The first 10,000 will be installed in affluent neighbourhoods that will pay for the total installation costs, in exchange for a 20 percent reduction in their electricity bills. Up to 400 low-income families and 1,000 street lamps in the city will then obtain very low-cost clean energy from the remaining panels.

“We can start to make great things in environmental and economical aspects,” said David Rosales, Technical Coordinator from Guatemala City Hall. “That’s the motto of our energy efficiency project:  ‘society rises with the sun’. This initiative is a first step towards solidarity.”

In the category for best solution the winner was the US company Big Belly Solar, awarded for its integral waste compacting and recycling system. The system reduces costs by using a solar-powered compactor, which is five times larger than standard containers, to compress waste while sensors detect wirelessly when the container is full. Philadelphia saved US$1 million in the first year it used the compactor and through fuel reductions in transport and consequent C0₂ emissions.

“Big Belly Solar was immediately praised by other municipalities from around the globe,” said, Scott Sauerbier, Senior Vice President at Big Belly Solar, speaking after returning to the US from the awards. “Gaining recognition that is well beyond concept to reality is a big boost in a prospects’ confidence. My expectation is that this should accelerate interests in the cities we have been having discussions with and create interest in those we’ve been seeking.”