3rd Smart City Exchange Forum

Collaboration drives innovation: City-to-city, research & innovation partnerships

​Date & location: January 26, 10:00 – 17:00 (Tallinn time) at Tallinn Teachers’ House (Raekoja plats 14, Tallinn, Estonia)

The 3rd Smart City Exchange Forum with the theme “Collaboration drives innovation: City-to-city, research & innovation partnerships” aims to enhance the cooperation and networking between researchers, cities, policy makers, companies and other relevant stakeholders for developing sustainable, resilient, and smarter urban environment.

The Exchange Forum has been an online event due to the COVID pandemics but this year we are pleased to host the event in Tallinn with live audience so everyone joined can meet face to face.

Main focus of 3rd Smart City Exchange Forum “Collaboration drives innovation: City-to-city, research & innovation partnerships” is on the collaboration structures between cities and their research and innovation ecosystems. Smart City Exchange Forum Day is co-hosted by the European Green Capital 2023 City of Tallinn.

In the first part of the day, we will cover the concept of twin cities of Helsinki and Tallinn and in the second part, we will zoom into the regional, European and international examples of city-to-city collaborations.

FinEst Centre for Smart Cities also organizes two side events for the Exchange Forum:

25th January: PhD School

The day is filled with workshops and discussions for all PhD students related to FinEst Centre for Smart Cities, and those interested to share their work and thoughts in fields of Smart Energy, Smart Mobility, Built Environment, Urban Analytics and Data or Smart City Governance.

26th January: Research groups and further funding

Researchers and Innovators, learn about and work for your further EU funding!

Further R&D&I funding is for research and innovation personnel within FinEst Twins project and FinEst Centre for Smart Cities, including city and company representatives involved in current or planned projects of the FinEst Twins project or FinEst Centre, i.e, within FinEst community.

Focus of the day:

1) further EU funding options for the current projects;
2) synergy between academic research and development/innovation activities;
3) formation of the FinEst community around FinEst Centre.

Ajakava

10.00 - 10.30

Coffee and registration

10.30 - 10.50

Joint opening by Mayors of Helsinki and Tallinn, Juhana Vartiainen and Mihhail Kõlvart

10.50 - 11.10

FinEst Centre for Smart Cities: Greater Helsinki-Tallinn Research and Innovation Ecosystem. Marko Nieminen, Aalto University and Ralf-Martin Soe, FinEst Centre for Smart Cities

11.10 - 12.00

Flagship examples of Helsinki and Tallinn city-to-city research and innovation collaboration: (1) Green Twins pilot addresses the issue of urban greenery and how it can be better taken into account in planning processes for sustainable and more democratic cities. Fabian Dembski, TalTech and High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart and Aija Staffans, Aalto University.

(2) Urban Open Platform for cross-border data exchange. Timo Ruohomäki, Forum Virium Helsinki.

(3) Examples of cross-border development based on IRIS and IOT-NGIN projects. Nikita Akmaikin, Forum Virium Helsinki.

(4) TREASoURcE aims to initiate systemic change by developing systemic circular economy solutions in cities via setting up exploitation, replication and transferable practices. Anna Tenhunen-Lunkka, VTT.

12.00 - 12.40

City Twinnings: Panel of Hellinn, Talsinki and beyond. Moderator: Neeme Raud. Participants: Juhana Vartiainen, Mihhail Kõlvart, Jaak Aaviksoo and Helen Sooväli-Sepping

12.40 - 13.00

Place-Based Innovation in Helsinki and Tallinn. Jaanus Müür, TalTech

13.00 - 14.00

Networking lunch

14.00 - 14.30

Smart City Keynote: Global Review of Smart City Governance Practices. Luca Mora, Edinburgh Napier University & TalTech

14.30 - 15.45

Flagship examples of city-to-city collaboration in Europe:​

(1) NetZeroCities project helps 100 EU cities to reach net-zero by 2030. It recently launched a 32 million euro Pilot Cities programme where cities will be coupled with twin cities. Will Wade, Climate KIC.

(2) Urban Learning Center for Eastern Partnership cities. The UNDP is setting up an Urban Learning Center for 300 cities in Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova with Tallinn as a potential Nordic Star Inspirational City. Elina Järvela, UNDP.

(3) CityAM project combines 3 larger Baltic Sea Cities (Helsinki, Hamburg and Stockholm) with 3 replicator cities (Tartu, Riga and Gdansk) for developing and implementing joint concepts for urban air mobility, related to landing sites, social acceptance and drone policy development. Jaanus Tamm, City of Tartu.

(4) CityScape project researches the interplay between security controls and multimodal transport systems in the cities of Tallinn and Genova. Liivar Luts, City of Tallinn.

(5) Ediaqi project deals with emerging indoor air pollution in multiple cities across Europe, building onto DigiAudit pilot with cities of Tallinn and Tartu. Alessandro Paciaroni, Lisbon Council.

(6) UrbanLIFECircles project introduces adaptive community-based biodiversity management in urban areas for improved connectivity and ecosystem health for cities of Tartu, Aarhus and Riga. Riia Ränisoo, City of Tartu.

15.45 - 16.30

Lessons learnt: FinEst smart city pilots. A discussion on how cities collaborate and learn within those pilots, both in terms of peer-to-peer format but also within research and innovation ecosystems.

(1) Introduction to the Piloting Program. Külle Tärnov, FinEst Centre for Smart Cities.

(2) Progress of Well-Being Score pilot. Ivo Fridolin, TalTech.

(3) Progress of DigiAudit pilot. Martin Thalfeldt, TalTech.

(4) The mini-piloting programme. Matti Hämäläinen, Forum Virium Helsinki.

16.30 - 17.00

Q&A and closing word by Kerkko Vanhanen, Forum Virium Helsinki

17.00 -

Networking reception in restaurant Maikrahv