Smart Vital Cities
Smart Vital Cities is a program and a series of initiatives that provide an answer to the challenge that the 21st-century city stands for: how to increase the well-being of the citizens under the pressure of the important changes in the city (population growth, mobility, security, housing, etc.).
Design of spaces in our cities are too often structured around non-human needs which reduces opportunities for human interactions and social activities. Physical spaces across cities are too often shaped and organised in a way that encourages sedentary lifestyles and deters people from adopting healthy and active habits in their daily lives.
Sport and physical activity are a cornerstone of a healthy and resilient society. This should be reflected in rethinking public spaces towards more accessibility, more physical activity, more social activities, and ultimately more sustainability.
We embrace smart city approaches, put the individual citizen central and aim to increase the active lifestyle to make a positive contribution in well-being, social cohesion and economic prosperity. Cities are an important actor in the whole of parties that can take up these challenges.
We as parties in the EPSI network have already have ample experience and had different projects in this field. From the need to develop more & new innovative approaches in this theme projects are being created in the partnership.
See also our list of previous and running projects
We are a multi-country network of regions and cities that have the ambition, scale and type of economy to develop and test possible solutions as well as a network of business that can commercially exploit them. We aim to enable public-private collaboration to create innovative products & services. Enterprises and offices in these regions will use the living lab methodology to trial and assess the impact of innovative solutions. Given the broad scope we develop a series of projects in this theme.
Do you want to know more?
We are looking for both funding opportunities and relevant partnerships in the international domain. If you are interested please contact EPSI. EPSI members can already access the relevant page on the Members Only Zone.
Smart Vital Cities – Best Practices
City Legends (by Cluster Sports&Technology). CityLegends is a tool for urban sporters to support on one hand the community of urban sporters to communicate, to meet, to set up challenge between the sporters and to find the best spots to do the tricks. On the other hand it provides the municipalities with insights of the urban sporters in the city. It provides data on the use of the urban environment and help the city to respond to the needs of the urban sporters. The company has been supported by the Vitality Living Lab project/consortium in various stages and has developed in 2 years to a scale up that receives public and private investment. It is now exporting the tool to nearby countries, a.o. Belgium and UK.
Read more at www.citylegends.nl
Vitality Living Lab (by Cluster Sports&Technology). The Vitality Living Lab project is a regional (ERDF) funded project in which 14 partners collaborate to create innovative solutions in public spaces, in the work environment and at sports to stimulate citizen to become more active and therefore more healthy. We investigated both the needs in society and the effects of innovations through a data collection and visualization system. We validate the innovations in real-life practical environments (living labs: fieldlabs, neighbourhoods and events). We accelerate innovations to market introduction by supporting them with a targeted (support & acceleration) program. We have supported around 50 innovation cases until now, some of them developing into successful businesses. The project will finish early 2022.
Read more at www.sportsandtechnology.com/vitality-living-lab
En Forme à Pau (by City of Pau). The “En Forme à Pau” program was created in 2015 under the initiative of the City of Pau, the regional Olympic committee and the regional social cohesion department. Its objective is to promote well-being and to offer physical and sporting leisure activities for non-practitioners at affordable rates, with the support of the city’s sports educators. Its summer version is free of charge and is organized with the help of associations in the city’s parks and gardens.