How can we harness technology to promote civic engagement and more responsive government?
This is the main question tackled the ‘Scaling Civic Tech: Paths to a Sustainable Future’, a recently released report summarised insights on this booming sector, developing a more nuanced understanding of civic tech business models.
What exactly is “civic tech”?
Civic tech: technology used to inform, engage and connect residents with government and one another to advance civic outcomes.
GovTech: technology designed with government as the intended customer or user.
Civic tech and GovTech are neither mutually exclusive nor perfectly overlapping. According to the research, as opposed to GovTech, which includes many technologies government use to increase the efficiency of its internal operations, civic tech tools largely include a citizen-facing component.
This report focuses on civic tech organisations of which a subset would also be considered GovTech. [Download PDF]
Key findings include:
- A lack of success stories from civic tech start-ups
- Variations in revenue model
- Different growth paths
- Lack of rigorous and consistant impact measurement
- Philantropic funding targeting specific projects and not core capacities
At 14:00 CET on 14 March, EUROCITIES hosted a public webinar on citizen participation and co-creation in smart cities, where the experiences gathered from the Sharing Cities and Green Digital Charter projects were shared with the participants.
WATCH THE WEBINAR
Reykjavik
Magnus Y. Josefsson presented the Better Reykjavik collaborative online platform, through which citizens can submit policy proposals to the municipal government. ‘Better Reykjavik‘ was among the shortlisted projects in the “Citizen participation & impact on society” category of the 2016 edition of the GDC Awards.
Find out more about Reykjavik’s SMART projects and priorities here.
Milan
During a recent peer-learning visit organised in Milan in the frame of the Sharing Cities project, ‘fellow’ city representatives heard a presentation about the host city’s civic crowdfunding practices.
Find out more about Milan’s SMART projects and priorities here.
About Sharing Cities
Sharing Cities (www.sharingcities.eu) ‘lighthouse’ programme is a proving ground for a better, common approach to making smart cities a reality. By foestering international collaboration between industry and cities, the project seeks to develop affordable, integrated, commercial-scale smart city solutions with a high market potential. The project partners work in close cooperation with the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) and with other ‘lighthouse’ consortia. Sharing Cities offers a framework for citizen engagement and collaboration at local level, thereby strenghtening trust between cities and citizens. The project draws on €24 million in EU funding. It aims to trigger €500 million in investment and to engage over 100 municipalities across Europe.
Last Friday (8 march 2016) during a ceremony organised in the European Committee of the Regions (Brussels), Amsterdam became the new European Capital of Innovation (iCapital).
This price has been attributed by the European Commission to reward the city’s efforts on finding innovative solutions to improve life of its citizens and boost its local economy. The winner of this competition, launched only last year, scooped the pot of €950,000 to be used on further boosting innovation.
The strength of Amsterdam lies in its holistic approach, as the city promotes innovation investment in four areas of urban life: governance, economics, social inclusion and quality of life, relying on the active participation of “smart citizens” to transform the city. Initiatives go from a high-tech e-parking system to programming courses for children. The city is also an important hub for start-ups.
Amsterdam is one signatory of the Green Digital Charter, testifying of its commitment in putting innovative solutions at the service of the fight against climate change. Digital technologies create real opportunities for increasing energy efficiency and facilitate emission reductions, in particular in the context of big cities.
Torino, another signatory of GDC, was selected as runner-up and will thus receive €100,000 to fund future initiatives.
Congratulations to both of them!
Seeking for more information?
- Press Release, “Amsterdam is the European Capital of Innovation 2016”, European Commission, 8 April 2016
- Why not your city? Click here to know more about this year’s results and conditions of application.
- Watch teasers on the finalists on the ‘Innovation Union’ YouTube channel