Citizen Initiatives, PPPs or Centralised Governance? Best Practices from Smart Cities around the World

Karen Laßmann studied business administration at the Technical University of Berlin (degree in 2002), has worked for the State of Berlin since 2006, initially as a trainee with the completion of the 2nd state examination in 2008. Afterwards Karen Laßmann held positions as a consultant at the Berlin Court of Auditors, Senate Department for Interior and Sport, initially in the area of administrative modernization, later as a consultant for the project “Feasibility study for the introduction of e-files in the state of Berlin” From 2013-2020 Karen Laßmann was consultant in the department responsible for science, responsible for the student union Berlin, the University of Economics and Law of Berlin (HWR) and the topic of gender equality in research and teaching. Since April 2020 she is the personal assistant to the State Secretary for administration and infrastructure modernization in the Berlin Senate Chancellery. Since September 2020 Karen Laßmann has also been in charge of the Smart City model project in the Berlin Senate Chancellery. She is coordinating of the overall process.

Leonie van den Beuken is an urban development expert. Driven to create social value and convinced that only by working together across boundaries we can create smart and liveable cities and regions for all. She now works as a program director for Amsterdam Smart City. This is an independent open innovation platform accelerating transitions in order to create a liveable metropolitan region. The public private partnership, connected with ngo’s and citizens, searches for innovative solutions for social, economic and ecological problems that affect the metropolitan region.

Judith Veenkamp is Lead of the Smart Citizens Lab at Waag. With her passion for new technologies and data solutions for societal issues she is at the right place here. She develops concepts and shapes projects to create innovative solutions together with citizens and stakeholders. She is involved in European projects in the field of mobility.

She has experience as communication advisor on the edge of governance, policy and citizenship and studied Politics, Conflict Studies and Human Rights. In her spare time she is part of DataMission: a network that connects organisations with a social mission to data scientists, developers and coders.

Mr. Hidalgo stands at the crossroads of technology, government, community, and impact. He believes in participatory communities and uses technology to improve people’s lives. His work has been achieved through patience and organizing problem-solving teams. Mr. Hidalgo is known as an effective organizer who can walk between worlds.

Since 2009, he has organized BetaNYC to be a driving force to improve New York City’s use of technology and share its data. BetaNYC has advocated for a suite of government transparency laws, including the city’s transformative open data law and city record online law. BetaNYC runs the New York City Civic Innovation Lab/Fellows program, in partnership with the Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, and curates the NYC School of Data community conference.

Roope Mokka is the other founder of Demos Helsinki, a futurist and urbanist with focus on social transformations. Roope has over 20 years of international experience as a strategic level advisor working with central and regional governments, cities, corporations, startups, NGOs and festivals.

Charles Lin was the Deputy Mayor of Taipei City, and is now the Deputy Mayor of Kaohsiung City. He directs many of the smart city projects, and actively promotes people-oriented, technology driven applications. He also initiated the founding of the “Global Organization of Smart Cities” in 2018.

Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder and director of Experimentalista, a novel type of nomadic and creative office specialized in cities, with high-level, transdisciplinary collaborations across the world.  She is former chief creative officer of Mexico City, and founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad (2013-2018), the award-winning experimental arm and creative think-tank of the Mexico City government, reporting to the mayor. 

She is a Yale World Fellow, TED Senior Fellow, MIT Director’s Fellow and was the recipient of the first Creative Bureaucrat Award. She was also named one of the 100 most creative people in Business by Fast Company Magazine.