The Nordic Smart City Roadmap provides a framework for smart city work in cities and municipalities both in the Nordics and internationally. Based on common Nordic values such as trust, equality, and co-creation, it will form a narrative of what constitutes a Nordic smart city – making it globally accessible for cities and municipalities around the world to understand and learn from its purposes and qualities
The challenge
To leave this world in better shape for the next generations, we must change our thinking about how we govern and evolve our cities and municipalities. We need a more holistic approach that acknowledges the complexity of tackling societal challenges. Technology can only take us so far. Social values, citizen involvement and trust need to play much stronger roles in the process of managing this change.
Every day we face societal dilemmas in our habitats that cannot be solved without more care for the environment and more attention to the social impact of our actions. The ultimate challenge is to transform the elements in our societies that are unequal, linear, polluting, unsafe and resource demanding, into societies that are liveable, dynamic, inclusive, green and resilient.
This challenge cannot be solved within geographical, political or cultural silos. The Nordic countries acknowledge the need for cross-sector, cross-boundary collaboration to build on the best ideas and achievements from around the world.
Through such a boundaryless exchange of concepts and experiences, we can create new market opportunities for companies, new areas of research and development, and – ultimately – better communities for people to live in, today and for the future.
The purpose
With this joint Nordic Smart City Roadmap we want to promote principles – conceptual, ethical and political guidelines – that honour a more human centric, inclusive and collaborative approach to developing smarter and more
sustainable communities.
We believe it can serve as a framework for smart city work in cities and municipalities both in the Nordics and internationally. Our ambition is to demonstrate practical ways of applying the principles of the Nordic Smart City Roadmap - to overcome the barriers and develop sound solutions that benefit cities and municipalities, the business community and, ultimately, the citizens.
Why the Nordics?
The Nordic Smart City Roadmap is based on common Nordic values: a strong sense of trust, commitment to the common good, sustainable living, equality, collaboration and co-creation, openness and inclusion.
With these values as building blocks, our ambition is for Nordic cities and municipalities to act as drivers and facilitators for collaborative processes, employing new technologies whilst at the same time empowering, protecting and putting forward the interests of the inhabitants.
Background
The Nordic Smart City Roadmap is co-financed by Nordic Innovation through the Nordic Sustainable Cities program.
The working group behind the roadmap consists of the following organizations:
- Nordic Smart City Network
- Nordic Edge
- Design and Architecture Norway
- Demos Helsinki
- Danish Design Center
- Danish Architecture Center
- Bloxhub
- Iceland Design and Architecture
- Nordic Urban Resilience Institute
The working group collected input through three open digital workshops gathering more than 200 participants from across the world. These were facilitated by Danish Design Center, Demos Helsinki, Design and Architecture Norway and Nordic Edge.
