Our Approach
Our approach to developing the toolkit has been highly collaborative and has involved cities, innovation agencies, universities and developer communities.
Online – resources are freely available and online
Accessible – the project uses open data and source code is made available through Github through open licenses. Where there is a requirement to register to an API or service this is to ensure we can provide the necessary support to users, and ensure consistency of service for existing users.
Reliable – these APIs have been tested with the partner cities and so have been through a number of quality control processes to get to this point.
Commitment – partner cities commitment to the project means that the majority of open data sets required are already available and in a trusted format.
Open Data – the partner cities have made available open data to be used by the various APIs and applications.
Best Practice – we are committed to developing best practice examples, for instance through the adoption of particular standards or processes.
Sustainability – the partner cities on the project have committed to continuing to work together to improve the APIs and develop the toolkit.
APIs & getting started
CitySDK development started within the CitySDK project with a focus on several key areas:
- citizen participation,
- mobility and
- tourism.
These were chosen because of their importance to the target cities; the existence or emergence of standards that could be sensibly adopted; the potential for re-use; and the benefit for residents.
This focus has resulted in a number of tools that together form the 3 major Components of the Toolkit. For each of these we have provided guidelines for implementation, the source code that can be reused or extended, and technical specifications that can also be adopted for each city.
Extendable solutions
However, the tools that we have developed may have a wider application – so that “issue reporting” standards in Helsinki is beginning to be used for other forms of consultation, or customer queries elsewhere; the tourism API developed in Lisbon can include a much wider range of “points of interest” than just tourist attractions; and the open data platform developed in Amsterdam for mobility applications, can easily use other datasets as well.
The nature of the services that are being deployed means that there are different levels of complexity to integrating the toolkit in your city. For instance, the nature of a city “issue reporting” tool requires close integration with a city’s legacy systems and different cities have implemented this in different ways depending on the nature of these systems.
Elsewhere, we have seen benefits in both hosting datasets for other cities, and running a stand-alone instance. In each of the components you are advised to contact the technical lead if you have any questions on what might be the best approach for your city.
CitySDK Partners
The CitySDK project is led by Forum Virium, a not-for-profit development company, based in Helsinki, and has 23 European partners in 9 countries. Supplementing the consortium, the partner cities are members in various European and global networks providing further means for cooperation, sharing of experiences and practices, and finding synergies. These networks include e.g. Eurocities, Connected Smart Cities Network and Global Cities Dialogue.
Cities and city regions:
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Barcelona, Spain
- Helsinki, Finland
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Lamia, Greece
- Lisbon, Portugal
- Manchester, UK
- Rome, Italy
Private companies
- Alfamicro, Portugal
- Gnosis Computers, Greece
- ISA Intelligent Sensing Anywhere, Portugal
- Lynx, Italy
- Sanoma, Finland
- TAGES, Turkey
Development and expert organizations
- Forum Virium Helsinki, Finland
- FutureEverything, UK
- Waag Society, Netherlands
Network organizations
- European Network of Living Labs
Universities and research institutes
- University of Tilburg, Netherlands
- ESADE, Spain
- CASPUR, Italy
- Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
- Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
PARTICIPATION
The Smart Participation is one of the three Pilot domains in the CitySDK. The purpose of the pilot is to create an open interface that acts as an issue-reporting channel between the citizens and the civil servants. The pilot is based on the Open311 technology, which is a standardized protocol for location-based collaborative issue tracking.
Forum Virium Helsinki, together with Helsinki’s Public Works Department and Sanoma Media Company, has implemented the Smart Participation Lead pilot in Helsinki. The Pilot enables citizens to give feedback via commonly used virtual platforms or applications.
The Smart Participation Lead pilot is closely linked with Helsinki’s new centralized feedback system which was introduced in the beginning of 2013. In the Lead Pilot, interfaces are built between the new feedback system and other platforms to enable a direct flow of citizen feedback to relevant recipients in the City Hall. For the citizens, the pilot gives an opportunity not only to give feedback but also to follow it by applying commonly used digital services.
During the summer 2013, the Smart Participation concept has been expanded to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lamia, Lisbon, Manchester and Rome. These partner cities will enable the two-way issue-reporting channel for their citizens and an opportunity to develop the interface according to their special needs.
The open interface used in the Smart Participation pilot is shared with the developers. By using the Open113 -based technology the developers are able to create new applications that can easily travel across borders. For more information on co-operation, visit the CitySDK Developer’s site.
