Networks and cities' news

“Time for review” – lessons learnt and outcomes from the Mid-Term Review of the ‘IoTXchange’ Action Planning Network, concluded on September 2021.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. The authorship of the quote is often debated and assigned to different authors, from Peter Drucker to Lord Kelvin or to Antoine-Augustin Cournot, but if there doubts on who said it first, anyone agrees with its reasoning. Especially in complex projects, you need to take time along the process to stand back, listen to the parts involved, and measure what you have achieved so far, in order to improve your doings and make sure you reach your final aims.

ServaNet – Regional Open Fiber Network

Miguel Sousa, Urbact Lead Expert developed a Case Study on ServaNet – Regional Open Fiber Network. The Scope of this case study is about municipalities in the same territory sharing the costs of developing a technological infrastructure, like it happens in the Västernorrland county in Sweden that includes Ånge and other 6 rural municipalities. The 7 municipalities are coowners of ServaNet, a regional broadband service provider, that is also implementing other lowcost/ low range solutions for IoT networks, such as LoRa.

ServaNet is a good example of a metropolitan area network, i.e. a broadband network available locally in one or more municipalities. ServaNet, like most other urban networks, is mostly built with fiber optics and is a so-called open net. It supplies fiber networks in the municipalities: Sundsvall, Härnösand, Timrå, Ånge, Strömsund and Ragunda, and is owned by the municipalities, or in some cases by utilities in municipalities, providing its inhabitants with access to the sharpest options in the Internet, television and smart services for the connected home, and ensuring the coordination of the offer across a vast region.

BioCanteens#2: cities engaged for food democracy and sovereignty

3 primary schools’ canteens in the city and a thousand lunches par day 100% organic and mostly local with no cost increase! That the magic of the Good Practice of Mouans-Sartoux, a small sustainable city, surrounded by the rather unsustainable French Riviera, where it’s all about real estate interest, high pressure on land use and mass tourism.

What's going on with Playful Paradigm II ?

If you want to get the knowledge of the starting steps of Playful Paradigm II Transfer Network, have a look at the first quarterly report presented here

Visual 1st Quarterly report of Playful Paradigm II

Thinking and Acting ‘Green’: How the concern for our climate and the environment helps to galvanise urban CSR-Action

Our current URBACT Action Planning Networks are now moving into full gear. After two years of development, and despite the serious difficulties all municipalities and stakeholders have been facing during the disruptive Covid-19 pandemic, transnational and local action intensifies markedly. This is certainly true for our CITIES4CSR network; the first URBACT-network aiming to create a rich toolbox for civic leaders and administrators in order to engage with local businesses, non-profits and citizens under the ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’-umbrella. On top of the ‘to-do’-lists for our ten partner cities you will find the lesson-drawing from our Small Scale Actions (SSA) and translating these findings directly into local action planning for the Integrated Action Plans (IAP). Yet, which topics have been chosen by the Urban Local Groups that have had the power to not just stimulate interest but truly galvanise SSA-action and cooperation?

Ventspils works in the field of digital transformation

Ventspils works in the field of digital transformation