How do you engage and involve the citizens and stakeholders in your smart city vision and strategy?

Engagement can be achieved through participatory platforms, regular town halls, and interactive digital tools. Involving citizens in decision-making, co-creation projects, and open feedback channels ensures their input shapes the city’s vision, fostering a sense of ownership and alignment with strategic goals.

To add more measurable goals that will keep you aligned with your vision; - Understanding city needs: Before engaging citizens and stakeholders, it's essential to have a deep understanding of the specific needs and challenges of your city. - Targeted goals and objectives. - Alignment with stakeholders. - Effective communication. - Realistic planning. - Measurable outcomes. - Flexibility and adaptability. - Continuous improvement. - Collaborative decision-making. By considering these points, you can lay a strong foundation for a successful engagement and involvement approach in your smart city initiatives.

Define our goals, vision, strategy and scope is the first important step which we should work and prepare for it. Once we did the preparation, we can start meeting the citizens and stakeholders to let them be engaged, they should feel that they are an important part of this strategy and smart cities vision by asking, discuss, and listen to their opinions and suggestions.

In Brazil, a collaborative effort between companies and cities is reshaping the urban narrative by actively engaging citizens in the decision-making process. Notably, Collab, a dynamic startup, serves as a vital interface, bridging the gap between City Management and Citizens. Functioning as a versatile channel, it facilitates meaningful conversations, conducts surveys, and enables plebiscites, fostering inclusive governance. One standout success story is in Niteroi, a city boasting over 400 thousand inhabitants, where Collab has achieved remarkable adoption rates, making it a beacon for effective civic participation.

Smart City is a collection of dozens / hundreds of different projects that have the same goals, in this case, to provide a smart city to the inhabitants from that place. A way to handle your objective is understand where the municipality wants to be in the future. When this stage finish the next will be to create a list of many projects and put in a time line. After that will be possible to have a complete view of the Smart City, theirs projects and the previst time to implement them.

The key to achieving success in any smart city vision lies in the ability to connect all the essential elements, starting with the smart community, which includes government bodies, private enterprises, academic institutions, SMEs & startups, and individuals. This collaboration forms the foundation for progress. Once the smart community is engaged, the next crucial step is to align their efforts with the vision pillar and smart city indicators, all aimed at achieving sustainable development. This concerted approach ensures that the city's growth is sustainable and benefits all stakeholders involved. Finally, it's important to remember that technology should always be considered as the final step in the process.

Identifying your priorities, considering factors such as impact, feasibility and potential for innovation can help start your stakeholder engagement in an effective manner. As the governments have to look at the broader picture while engaging the stakeholders they need to look for the opportunities that can define quick results.

Identify and map stakeholders is an important step as this will enable us to an effective plan, communicate with relevant parties and to know who to contact with specific questions or concerns for our smart city vision. We have an internal stakeholder which are people within our organisation and company involved with the project and smart city vision including team member and employees. External stakeholders who is people doesn't directly impact include people and organisation.

Stellen Sie die Bürgerwünsche in den Mittelpunkt Eine Smart-City-Vision ist nur dann nachhaltig tragf?hig, wenn sie sich an den Bedürfnissen ihrer Bürger orientiert. Ideal sind Online-Plattformen, über die Bewohner ihre Vorstellungen artikulieren k?nnen. Das ist schneller und günstiger, als aufwendige Umfragen in Auftrag zu geben. Barcelona hat mit der Decidim-Plattform gute Erfahrungen gemacht. Die Open-Source-Plattform z?hlt 120.000 Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer, die sich gemeinsam Gedanken machen, wo zum Beispiel neuer Wohnraum oder Grünfl?chen entstehen sollten.

Mapping Stakeholders for Smart Cities: Driving Community Engagement Identify Key Stakeholders: Recognize all parties impacted by your smart city vision—citizens, businesses, public authorities, NGOs, academia, and media. Map Interests and Influence: Use tools like stakeholder analysis or mapping to understand their interests, influence, expectations, and roles in your smart city journey. Understand Their Needs: Develop stakeholder personas to capture what each group wants and how they can contribute. Foster Community Engagement: Align goals with stakeholder interests to build strong partnerships, ensuring inclusive growth and sustainable success for your smart city initiatives.

Die Einbeziehung der Bürger in die Smart-City-Strategie ist entscheidend. ?? Online-Plattformen wie Decidim in Barcelona erm?glichen es Bürgern, ihre Ideen zu teilen. ?? Workshops und ?ffentliche Foren bieten pers?nliche Diskussionsm?glichkeiten. ?? Partnerschaften mit lokalen Organisationen helfen, die Bedürfnisse der Gemeinschaft zu verstehen. ??Kontinuierliche Feedback-Schleifen gew?hrleisten, dass die L?sungen den Bedürfnissen entsprechen. So wird unsere Smart-City-Strategie nachhaltig und erfolgreich.

Choose your methods and tools to engage stakeholders in your smart city vision: 1) Select diverse methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, workshops, hackathons, co-creation sessions, online platforms, social media, gamification, or crowdsourcing. 2) Adapt the methods to fit your context and goals to ensure inclusive and meaningful participation from all involved groups. 3) Pick tools that facilitate gathering feedback, generating ideas, testing solutions, and co-designing policies and services for your smart city.

There’s no smart cities without smart citizens. In that sense and from the urban planning perspective, you should always count on communities. They know what they really need, what are their priorities and most of them want to be part of the solution. Although few things guarantee success, the one thing we as decision makers can’t forget is that people are key stakeholders for transforming vision into reality. Workshops, experiments, communications in social media, surveys and interviews with all kind of actors are, for me, the best tools to interact with stakeholders.

We can use tools such as stakeholder maps, surveys, interviews, or workshops to identify and categorize our stakeholders according to their power, interest, and expectations. This will help us understand their needs, concerns, and preferences, as well as potential conflicts or synergies among them.

Choosing Methods for Smart Cities Community Engagement Define Your Goals: Clarify whether you need feedback, ideas, solution testing, or policy co-design for your smart city. Select the Right Tools: Use methods like surveys, focus groups, workshops, hackathons, or co-creation sessions to engage stakeholders effectively. Leverage Digital Channels: Utilize online platforms, social media, gamification, or crowdsourcing to reach a wider audience. Measure Engagement Impact: Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your chosen methods to ensure they drive meaningful participation and adapt as needed.

Here are some additional key points to keep in mind: 1. Start early and engage continuously. 2. Embrace transparency and accountability. 3. Provide clear and relevant information. 4. Foster inclusivity and diversity. 5. Ensure accessibility and participation. 6. Acknowledge and value contributions. 7. Monitor and evaluate impact. 8. Don't copy paste the best practices that you learned; customize it to be aligned with DNA of city and people. By adhering to these principles and guidelines, you can ensure that your engagement and involvement activities are well-planned, inclusive, and impactful. This approach will help foster meaningful collaboration, build trust, and achieve shared goals in your smart city projects.

As you implement your initiatives and build the right capabilities (people, process and technologies) monitor your success and ensure continuous improvement.

One thing I have found useful for any project and smart cities project, we should plan, execute, monitor and implement our activities clearly and to be accountable and transparent about the progress, process and the results and outcomes of the project. Sharing the results and information -with management, stakeholders, client and citizens if it is allowed- is an important step to have a successful project and to make sure our smart city vision will have a brilliant future.

Planning Smart Cities Community Engagement Activities Engage Early and Continuously: Start engaging stakeholders from the beginning and maintain involvement throughout the smart city project. Ensure Transparency: Be clear about the purpose, process, and expected outcomes of your engagement activities. Communicate Effectively: Use multiple channels and formats to provide accessible and relevant information to diverse groups. Promote Inclusivity: Create spaces that ensure accessibility, diversity, and representation for all participants. Value Contributions: Acknowledge participant input and regularly evaluate the impact of your community engagement efforts.

When planning and implementing stakeholder engagement activities, it's essential to follow clear principles. Start early and maintain consistent involvement throughout the project. Transparency is key—be open about the purpose, process, and outcomes, while offering clear guidance through diverse channels to ensure broad accessibility. Make sure your activities promote diversity and inclusion, providing a space for dialogue and innovation. Lastly, recognize the value of every contribution and continuously monitor and evaluate the impact to refine and improve your approach. These steps build trust and lead to more successful outcomes.

To effectively communicate your smart city engagement results: Share Outcomes: Clearly communicate the results of community engagement to stakeholders and the public. Build Trust: Use transparent reporting to build trust and credibility in your smart city vision. Use Engaging Formats: Utilize infographics, videos, podcasts, or blogs to convey benefits, challenges, and insights. Create Feedback Loops: Provide feedback to participants, showing how their inputs were used. Outline Next Steps: Share follow-up actions to maintain momentum and engagement in your smart city strategy.

Sharing and communicating the results for our activities and progress is an important step which will help to build trust with stakeholders as they are interested always to have an idea and to keep informed about our project. We usually have a weekly meeting with our client to present and inform them about progress, plan, blocking points, clarification, milestones priorities. from the government if we may have. Last point if we receive any opinions, questions, points or suggestions from people and citizens we should consider it and show them that their engagements are highly considered with appreciation.

The final step in your engagement and involvement activities is to effectively communicate and share the results with your stakeholders and the wider public. Here's how you can do it: 1. Share the outcomes. 2. Use engaging storytelling techniques. 3. Highlight benefits, challenges, and learnings. 4. Provide feedback loops and follow-up actions. 5. Engage through multiple channels. 6. Encourage dialogue and ongoing engagement. By effectively communicating and sharing the results of your engagement and involvement activities, you can build a positive perception of your smart city initiatives, demonstrate the value of participatory processes, and inspire further collaboration and support from stakeholders and the wider public.

For example, following an initiative aimed at improving public lighting and reducing traffic congestion through citizen engagement, launch a communication campaign including videos, infographics on social media, and a monthly newsletter. Highlight how residents’ suggestions led to innovations such as the installation of intelligent LED lighting and the development of infrastructure for carpooling and cycling lanes. Include testimonials and impact analyses to illustrate tangible benefits and strengthen the legitimacy of the participatory approach. Also, announce the next steps to maintain community engagement and the momentum for change.

Engaging citizens in a smart city vision can be transformative:- Helsinki's 'Participatory Budgeting' allows residents to allocate city funds to preferred projects, fostering a sense of ownership & active participation in city development. Singapore's 'Smart Nation' initiative conducts 'Living Lab' experiments, where citizens trial & provide feedback on tech solutions in real environments, shaping the city's tech ecosystem. In Amsterdam, the 'Amsterdam Smart City' platform encourages locals to initiate sustainability projects, integrating citizen innovation into the urban fabric. 'DigiTwin', a project in Hamburg, creates digital twins of neighbourhoods, allowing residents to contribute to future city planning

In the field of smart cities, it’s crucial not to overlook the importance of environmental and social sustainability. Consider a project that incorporates green roofs into new urban developments. These spaces do not only serve to reduce the carbon footprint but also to create community gathering places, thus improving social cohesion. This underscores the need for a holistic approach that embraces both advanced technologies and fundamental human values, ensuring that smart cities remain vibrant, welcoming, and sustainable places for all generations.