CeBIT 2015: Panel with OASC 1st wave cities

OASC Secretariat

Mar 18, 2015

Category

Belgium | Denmark | Finland | News & Events

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Day two of the CeBIT 2015 meant another exciting day for visiting smart city enthusiasts and professionals.

The Open & Agile Smart Cities initiative was officially launched during the first day of CeBIT 2015, and the second day offered a very interesting debate panel with representatives from the first wave of cities commited to the initiative.

The panel was hosted by Jarmo Eskelinen of Forum Virium Helsinki who moderated the panel with questions and topics for discussion. The city representatives were Bo Fristed, CIO of Open Data Aarhus, Aarhus Municipality in Denmark, Pieter Ballon, director of iMinds in Brussels, Belgium, and Seppo Haataja, director of Open Tampere in Finland.

During the half-hour discussion, a host of topics were treated: the importance of national city partnerships, international collaboration made possible through open standards, why each city chose to be a part of the Open & Agile Smart City initiative, and next steps from here.

Dicussing open standards, the participants reflected on how cities, smart city professionals, companies and entrepreneurs can more easily reap the benefits of combining open data and new technologies to create better and more integrated smart services across cities, countries and even continents.

Interested participants in the audience also had their chance to ask the panel questions after their discussion, which afterwards continued in talks between the four panel members and other present smart city professionals.

The OASC presence at CeBIT has been summed up in this Storify story.