Dutch cities join Open & Agile Smart Cities

OASC Secretariat

Jun 5, 2015

Category

Netherlands | News & Events

Share this post

Today, June 4, 2015, six motivated Dutch cities have signed the Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) Letter of Intent to join the 2nd wave, forming OASC NL: Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Enschede, Rotterdam and Utrecht.

Keeping up with market velocity

Katalin Gallyas is Vice Chair of the Connected Smart Cities Network Board, which oversees the OASC initiative, and the Board’s contact to OASC NL. She is also Open Innovation Manager at the CTO Office in the City of Amsterdam. Reporting from the signing, she says:

“We are really proud to announce this step as all six cities are very keen to move towards smart interoperable open data-based solutions. I am very inspired to see this unique collaboration where we can, for the first time, openly discuss the pros and cons of some open data platforms dashboards, and we’ll push forward the smartest solutions.”

“It is not only about procuring smartly when it comes to open / big data-based solutions, but also to make sure we are not missing the market velocity when it comes to open data-based city ‘steering’,” says Gallyas.

National events and collaboration

The Dutch cities are meeting bi-monthly and have a technical secretary, hosted by the CTO Office in the City of Amsterdam.

The ambition is to promote the ‘intelligence unit’ features of this national collaborative network, and to set up very concrete collaboration projects between the participating cities, applying for common open data funds on a larger scale.

National open data-related events and capacity building via MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) will be facilitated in and driven by this network.

Next meeting in OASC NL is June 25 in Utrecht, at 10-12 am.

OASC members and topics will be part of national Open Data and IoT conferences such as the CIO conference in November 2015.

Soon a collaboration website will be launched to generate common project and concrete milestones.

“We really look forward to take the first harmonised open data steps between the OASC NL member cities,” says Katalin Gallyas.

The signees from the six Dutch OASC cities were

  • Amersfoort: Mr. M. Tigelaar, Alderman of the City of Amersfoort.
  • Amsterdam: Mr. Ger Baron, CTO, City of Amsterdam.
  • Eindhoven: Ms. Mary-Ann Schreurs, Wethouder van Innovatie en Design, Cultuur en Duuzaamheid, City of Eindhoven.
  • Enschede: Mr. E. Eerenberg, Alderman of the City of Enschede.
  • Rotterdam: Mr. Mark Vermeer, Chief Information Officer, City of Rotterdam.
  • Utrecht: Mr. S. Huijsman, Chief Information Officer, City of Utrecht.

Below are more detailed motivations from the cities of Amersfoort and Enschede, adding the perspective of a medium-sized city on the prospective value of the Open & Agile Smart Cities initiative.