The Smart City Office of the Brussels-Capital Region has been organising a series of Smart Lunches this autumn. The purpose of these sessions, aimed at the local authorities of the Brussels communes, is to exchange experiences and gain inspiration from speakers representing the 'quadruple helix' (academics, businesses, public authorities and citizens). The first session in a series of three was dedicated to Smart City and citizen participation.
Following an opening speech by the Supervisory Minister Bernard Clerfayt, Laura Temmerman from the
SMIT research group demonstrated how smart cities and citizen engagement go hand in hand. She placed particular emphasis on the importance of inclusivity in ensuring successful citizen participation, otherwise there is a risk that only part of the population will play an active role, which would result in a distorted picture. In order to reach the largest and most diverse group of citizens possible, Temmerman recommends that a variety of media be used, including both digital and analogue.
In the second half of the afternoon, participants were introduced to the online citizens' platform
CitizenLab. The different possibilities offered by the platform were demonstrated in an interactive demo session.
Finally, the individual representatives from the communes of Brussels were given the floor. Perrine Ledan, Alderwoman for Citizen Participation in Uccle, presented her findings in the context of the commune's
participation budget. For the realisation of this project, Uccle used the open source platform provided by the federal public service
BOSA. She also agreed that a combination of digital and non-digital communication channels is needed to reach as many residents as possible. This has been made more difficult by the current health crisis, however. Different questions were brought up concerning the different authentication systems used in these platforms. Christos Doulkeridis, Mayor of Ixelles, took the opportunity to talk about the commune's online platform
WebTV, where local residents can share videos. By integrating the platform into the existing website, it has been possible to set up a transversal project on a low budget, which will continue even after lockdown.
A total of 50 participants registered for this first session in the Smart Lunches series. The attendees represented ten communes of Brussels, as well as the BRIC, the cabinet of Minister Clerfayt, and various organisations that are active in the Brussels-Capital Region. It was a most successful first session. Interested in more? Register for the other sessions via
this link.
