City of Tampere: Finland in Co-operation With Japan in Human-Centred Smart Urban Development

TAMPERE, Finland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tampere, one of Finland's largest cities, is the first in Europe to introduce the Liveable Well-Being City indicators, which Japan uses to measure well-being factors from the perspective of residents in its 27 cities. The indicators will provide important information to support knowledge management on the state of the urban environment, the quality of services and the well-being of citizens.

The co-operation between Tampere and Japan will start with the application of the indicators developed in co-operation between Smart City Institute Japan and several research institutes and universities. The model utilises both objective and subjective data collected from urban residents to improve well-being and streamline everyday life.

The data is an important foundation for knowledge management: it enables cities to identify their success points and development needs from the residents' perspective. With the co-operation, the model will now be applied to Tampere as part of the Data Driven City for Citizens -development programme. The co-operation was announced at the Barcelona Smart City World Expo.

– For years, the Japanese have familiarised themselves with the key factors of the Nordic welfare society and have strived to systematically understand the components of well-being, says Kristian Valkama, Director, AI Transformation, at Business Tampere.

– We have established a good connection with the City of Tampere, and companies and universities from Tampere, says Takehiko Nagumo, Executive Managing Director of Smart Cities Institute of Japan.

– Japan wants to work closely with Europe, especially Finland, in matters related to data and artificial intelligence. Our worlds meet well with regard to the use of ethical data, and closer co-operation benefits us both, says Teppo Rantanen, Executive Director at City of Tampere.

In Finland, the potential of artificial intelligence has been considered through the national AuroraAI programme. The aim of the programme is to streamline people's everyday life and business life, to develop more human-centred services through information and technology.

– The well-being indicators and the AuroraAI programme complement our co-operation and make it useful on both sides. We will share the experiences and results offered by the indicators between the countries, and this will speed up our shared learning journey towards improving the well-being of city residents, Nagumo says.