The Finnish city of Tampere, the second largest in the country, recently announced its plans to invest six to ten billion Euros by 2030 in order to become a fully-integrated smart city.
“Our plan is to open the big challenges of the city and develop innovative solutions to them together with companies. The challenges might be, for example, the amount of elderly in the future and making sure they get the best care,” says the Mayor of the City of Tampere, Anna-Kaisa Ikonen.
The Smart Tampere program already has a number of smart city projects in development. Open data is readily available, including traffic data, location data, tourism information, city budget and procurement information. A new light rail system will start construction this year and will offer a testing ground for smart mobility solutions, smart building and smart infrastructure solutions.
The first seven themes of Smart Tampere are smart health, smart education and know-how, smart industry, smart building, smart infrastructure, smart mobility and smart government and citizen. The interaction between the public sector, enterprises, associations, academia and the citizens is of paramount importance to the local government in implementing these projects.
“All this will make Tampere even more attractive to international companies than it is now,” said Teppo Rantanen, Executive Director of economic policy, competitiveness and innovation, City of Tampere. “Tampere has a strong history in cooperation between different organizations and companies and now we have a dynamic process that enhances active cooperation even more.”
