Smart City Lab links Tampere University community more strongly as part of smart city development

A new cooperation coordination model, called Smart City Lab, has been created in Tampere. It makes it easier for the city and businesses to collaborate with universities in smart urban development.

For companies, the Smart City Lab provides contact to research projects, researchers, education, students, university services, and clusters of excellence, innovation platforms and forums related to Smart City themes.

The goal is to help companies find the skills and partners they need. Tampere University wants to support companies in developing their Smart City business, for example by testing new services and piloting them. The aim is also to promote cooperation in order to generate new research and development projects.

Focusing the knowledge, research and expertise of the university community on developing Smart Tampere themes will enable joint projects between different actors, says Petri Pohjola, Project Manager at Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

In the research, education and services of the Tampere University community, Smart City themes have already been taken forward in many different units and projects, as well as with several partners. However, the overall picture was missing. With Smart City Lab, a comprehensive understanding of these diverse activities has been developed, making it easier to bring together the talents.

The coordination model has been tested by presenting it to visitor groups from Japan, China, Russia, Sweden, Norway and Finland. We have received very good feedback, says Kai Hämäläinen, Project Manager at Smart City Lab from the Tampere University.

The next step is to put the model into practice by appointing coordinators from the academic community for Smart Tampere’s nine themes.

More information

Kai Hämäläinen
Project Manager, Tampere University
tel. +358 50 3187 697
kai.hamalainen@tuni.fi

Petri Pohjola
Subproject Manager, Tampere University of Applied Sciences
tel. +358 50 5927 460
petri.pohjola@tuni.fi