Crowdsourcing Week Europe 2016: We need engaged people

By Letta Kalamara

Last week from 21th to 25th November third edition of Crowdsourcing Week Europe 2016 took place in Brussels. It was a great and useful event  where plenty of many good ideas were heard about Crowd Economy. “We need engaged people” was one of the most important messages during Wednesday 23th November talking. The topic was “Smart Cities, Sharing economy and mobility”. 

As Floris Tack, Attaché General Policy and Legal Affairs Cabinet of Brussels Minister of Mobility Pascal Smet Belgium, said we have to improve public places infrastructure and mobility. That means cleaner and safer public places, fewer vehicles and more transportation options. At the same time improving mobility means accessibility for all citizens. But mobility is more than a new art of life, a sm-art life. 

Alain Deneef, Intendant of Brussels Metropolitan explained the shifting from the occupation of space to the mastery of time: how the way we formulate our need of being mobile can help us win the mobility battle.  Mobility is the capacity of crossing a distance between two points. If this is surely a question of space, it can even more be a question of time. The way this demand can be modulated depends heavily on the behavior of citizens, their will to change things, the trade-offs they are willing to make and the help governments may provide to them in facilitating the coming of this tipping point in our citizen’s conscience, as Mr Deneef said.    

But what is a smart city? Is the city which uses data to improve infrastructure, public utilities and services, and more. 




Frank de Weser, B2B Marketing & IoT Director Orange Belgium, during Crowdsourcing Week said that its not about open data but useful data. The question is real solutions for real problems, available network (narrow-band will boost connected things) useful data, demonstrate ROI. Most of all smart cities demonstrate positive ROI.  But how can we enable citizens to improve their city? The answer is one according to Xavier Damman, Open Collective, USA, “the time to complain to existing authorities about the state of our city is over. They are unable to do much about it. We need to move to a new system where anyone is empowered to make the change he wants to see in their community. Most of all we can’t use an old map to see a now world”.