The Smart Cities Marketplace (SCM)

The Smart Cities Marketplace (SCM) is an initiative supported by the European Commission that brings together different stakeholders involved in the Smart City field. By creating a hub for Smart City networks, platforms, initiatives and other stakeholders, it aims to support the transition to more sustainable and resilient cities, reaching the European energy and climate targets, and improving citizen’s quality of life. The 7500 members of the SCM can explore the knowledge, use cases and best practices available on the website to get inspiration and develop smart solution ideas for their cities. Matchmaking activities under the SCM further help shape those ideas into bankable projects and bring potential investors in to discuss financing of the projects and ultimately close a deal. As part of the Secretariat for the SCM, we provide support to the Action Clusters of the SCM community and help valorise their input in the Matchmaking.

The Action Clusters

The SCM community comprises partners that are committed to work on and share their knowledge, expertise and experience about specific issues pertaining to smart cities. These partners are organised in Action Clusters that cover different areas of interest within the domains of mobility and transport, information and Communication technologies, and energy:

• Business Models and Finance
• Citizen Focus
• Integrated Infrastructures and Processes
• Integrated Planning, Policy and Regulations
• Sustainable Districts and Built Environment
• Sustainable Urban Mobility

Each Action Cluster includes several thematic stakeholder-owned Initiatives, which focus on particular objectives and promote the share of knowledge and dissemination of findings and ideas through their established networks.

The Matchmaking

Matchmaking is an important process supported by the SCM, which aims to link project ideas with investors and facilitators who are interested in Smart Cities projects. To achieve this, the SCM offers matchmaking services, for which a call for projects is open, and organises matchmaking events, one of which was the recent Matchmaking event that took place on April 27 and attracted more than 165 participants.

The Smart Cities MarketplaceMatchmaking event brought together city representatives, businesses, investors and the Action Cluster and Initiative members. Th!nk E co-organised this event, with Leen Peeters moderating large parts of it and Agata Smok taking visual notes. Offering matchmaking and networking opportunities, this event was concentrated around “factsheet workshops”, which aimed to collaboratively shape new project ideas into financially viable projects. In the factsheet workshop sessions, cities, solution providers, and interested audience members worked together with the Action Cluster members to develop a business model canvas from the original factsheet ideas brought forward by the Action Clusters. The developed project ideas and business model canvases where then pitched in front of an expert jury and received feedback from the perspectives of financing, business, and city development.

The factsheets

The idea of the “factsheets” comes from our experience with the neighbourhood battery factsheets developed for the Bat2Portal project, which proved to be excellent tools to generate interest in the technology among cities. These factsheets provide citizens, city officials and investors with the necessary information about the technology, focusing on the value it offers and on the business case.

Similar factsheets were developed for selected topics for the SCM Matchmaking event, for which Th!nk E collected content from the Action Clusters and prepared animated e-pubs that can be found below:

• Smart lighting: Action Cluster Integrated Infrastructures and Processes and Initiative Humble Lamppost
• GAIA X data rooms for mobility: Action Cluster Sustainable Urban Mobility
• Technology for positive energy districts: Action Cluster Sustainable Districts and Built Environment together with Action Cluster on Business Models
• Valorisation of personal data: Action Cluster Citizen Focus and Initiative Citizen Control of Personal Data
• Co-creation with local stakeholders using digital twins for integrated planning: Action Cluster Integrated Planning with all inherent initiatives

The factsheets inspired interest from different stakeholders that attended the workshop sessions of the SCM Matchmaking event, empowering the Action Clusters to translate their know-how into draft project canvases, and potentially financially viable projects, together with cities and solution providers. At the same time, the cities, solution providers and other stakeholder groups could participate in the forming of these ideas, bringing in their perspectives and ensuring there is added value for each involved partner. This successful event furthermore enhanced the visibility of the SCM and provided insights on the possible barriers to smart city project uptake. What’s more, the winning pitch, on digital twins, will get specific one-on-one support towards effective deals!

We would be happy to develop your factsheet and get your idea closer to effective implementation! Want to understand how we can help you on this? Contact us!