Almere Ken­nis­stad

Almere Ken­nis­stad, Almere — The Netherlands

Almere Ken­nis­stad (Almere SmartC­ity) is an inno­v­a­tive pro­gram that con­tributes to the eco­nom­i­cal en social devel­op­ment of the city of Almere, by imple­ment­ing ICT in dif­fer­ent sec­tions of the soci­ety. Sec­ond aim of the pro­gram is to con­sol­i­date the posi­tion of Almere in the Nether­lands and espe­cially within the north­ern part of the ‘Rand­stad’. Almere Ken­nis­stad is funded by the local gov­ern­ment and county Flevoland.

The pro­gram AlmereS­martC­ity con­tributes to:

1. More eco­nom­i­cal growth and employ­ment (prosperity)
2. Higher qual­ity of ser­vice (contentment/ well-being)
3. Bet­ter image (pro­file and promotion)

1.     More eco­nom­i­cal growth and employ­ment (prosperity)

Invest­ing in devel­op­ment and appli­ca­tion of ICT in enter­prises is an essen­tial but not suf­fi­cient con­di­tion for eco­nom­i­cal growth and increas­ing employ­ment. The pro­gram will there­fore mainly sup­port activ­i­ties and projects that:

* strengthen the cli­mate of inno­va­tion, includ­ing required infra­struc­ture
* stim­u­late inno­va­tion in enter­prises, with spe­cial atten­tion for (knowledge-based) busi­ness to busi­ness services

In coop­er­a­tion with inter­me­di­a­te­or­ga­ni­za­tion­s­like Syn­tens, the Cham­ber of Com­merce and dif­fer­ent associations,the pro­gram searches for ini­tia­tives that con­tribute to the imple­men­ta­tion and use of ICT in small and medium sized com­pa­nies (SME’s).

2.     Higher qual­ity of ser­vice (contentment/ well-being)

The use of ICT in social sec­tions like edu­ca­tion, health care, secu­rity care and mobil­ity con­sid­er­ably con­tribute to qual­ity improve­ment and cost reduc­ing. Qual­ity improve­ment in the sphere of attain­able­ness (due to decreas­ing costs) and avail­abil­ity (inde­pen­dently of loca­tion and time) of ser­vices in these sec­tions. AlmereS­martC­ity takes up the chal­lenge to ini­ti­ate and facil­i­tate as much projects as pos­si­ble that both urge and help local and regional enter­prises and orga­ni­za­tions with inno­va­tions. On the other hand –and simul­ta­ne­ously– these projects yield improved social ser­vices in the sec­tions men­tioned. The (local) gov­ern­ment will have to prove the sur­plus of dig­i­tal ser­vices. The cus­tomers (indi­vid­ual) wishes and demands are cru­cial. The gov­ern­ment will have to com­mu­ni­cate in a more fre­quent and per­sonal way to rad­i­cally improve the rela­tion between gov­ern­ment and cit­i­zens. Tech­nol­ogy can give a hand.

3.     Bet­ter image (pro­file and promotion)

A lead­ing posi­tion in the use of ICT in the men­tioned sec­tions of the civil soci­ety matches in a per­fect way with the image of a mod­ern city. Almere is known for it’s out­stand­ing posi­tion in the domain of knowl­edge and inno­va­tion. The first city in Europe that is pro­vided with fiber into every com­pany, office and res­i­dence and is there­fore capa­ble to turn to account the prof­its of the sup­ply of ser­vices over these light­ning con­nec­tions. A city that in addi­tion improves its image by the set­tle­ment of lead­ing enter­prises and orga­ni­za­tions in the domain of research, devel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of dig­i­tal con­tent and related ser­vices. The city gov­ern­ment her­self is lead­ing in offer­ing dig­i­tal ser­vices to the cit­i­zens of Almere and con­tributes in that way to the image of Almere as SmartCity.

Con­tact infor­ma­tion
Con­tact per­son: Ger­ard Jansen — Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Web­site: http://www.almerekennisstad.nl/