Innovative Smart City through Competition

Helsinki provides an example on how to encourage innovation in the region that would eventually improve the quality of life of its citizens. The government held competitions that utilised the existing Open Data service to the citizens and start-ups that encouraged the creations of products and services that would benefit the city. The challenge from the competition brings out the innovative capacity of all the city stakeholders and further promotes the smart city policy in Helsinki. The competition also opens up new channels, collaboration and new business networks between the participants, which is an indicator of a growing smart city. 

Reference:

Hielkema, H., & Hongisto, P. (2013). Developing the Helsinki smart city: The role of competitions for open data applications. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 4(2), 190-204.

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