The City of Tampere is developing a smart city by using real estate projects as platforms

The City of Tampere in Finland is building into a smart city by treating city development projects as platforms for innovative solutions and new business models. The city enables this by opening data, building ecosystems and enhancing the culture of cross-industry co-operation. In the real estate expo MIPIM 2018 Tampere is showcasing how it acts as a platform.

The City of Tampere is creating platforms that enable co-creation, business ecosystems, new business models, smart city solutions, and as a result, better quality of life. In the field of real estate and buildings the main aspects of development in Tampere are sustainability, energy efficiency, wide range of services from house maintenance to health and security services and the whole ‘living as a service’.

Tampere is developing heavily and is estimated to invest 6-10 Billion Euro both public and private investments in the next 15 years. For example, Tampere is already building a tramway through the city, a deck with housing, offices and accommodation above the train tracks in the city centre, a multipurpose arena that will offer an outstanding digital experience and a travel and service centre that will serve over 20 Million passengers and commuters a year when finished. All these development projects serve as platforms for smart city development.

The City has different ways to help companies and organizations to work together and to help create new innovations and new business models. For one, multiple partnerships are the core for the co-creation in these platforms. City of Tampere creates, and is an active player in business ecosystems in different smart city themes of which Smart Buildings and Infrastracture together with Artificial Intelligent and Analytics are the most vital for the real estate field. These ecostystems consist of the city itself, companies from different fields, universities and research institutions but also the citizens. A vital part in the ecosystems are the citizens that give valuable feedback. Second, the City of Tampere is actively opening its assets for the private sector by creating new IoT platforms for data collection, analyzation and distribution to meet the companies’ needs. Also city’s own experts in different fields are accessible to the companies and can tell the challenges that the city faces. Third, Tampere acts as a reference for international markets. Tampere is small enough to make things happen but big enough to act as reference so that the solutions created in Tampere can be scaled to other smart cities all over the world.

“The goal of Tampere is to be an example city in technological development and to serve as a platform for business development. We want to offer solutions which improve the quality of life of city residents and improve the competitiveness of our region. Digitalisation and smart city solutions make daily life easier, increase well-being and safety, in addition to creating new business activity”, says Tero Blomqvist, Smart Tampere program Director from the City of Tampere.

The city of Tampere is showcasing these platform strategy and the actual platforms at MIPIM 2018 in Cannes March 13th to 16th, 2018. Tampere is situated at the Helsinki Finland stand (P-1.M1, level -1 in Palais des Festivals). The presentation “Building a Smart City through Infrastructure and Buildings” by Deputy Mayor Aleksi Jäntti and Director Tero Tenhunen from the City of Tampere takes place at the Helsinki Finland stand Wednesday March 14^th at 14.30.

Real estate event MIPIM, established in 1990, gathers international property players from the office, residential, retail, healthcare, sport, logistics and industrial sectors for 4 days of networking, learning and transaction.

Smart Tampere is a strategic program by the City of Tampere aiming to create a living lab in which technology solutions can be explored, tested and ultimately deployed to improve the lives of citizens and make the city more attractive to businesses and visitors. Through city planning Tampere has been able to ensure public and private investments of 6-10 Billion Euro to turn Tampere into a smarter city by 2030.