Smart cities are the future

In 1995, Tampere’s main library Metso took a huge digital leap when it acquired the first computer terminal with an Internet connection aimed at its customers. Now, almost 30 years later, you can manage many tasks with your mobile phone in any location. Soon, the way we are currently using our mobile phones may feel old-fashioned. Digitalisation has taken us far, and its speed is only increasing.

The City of Tampere wants to be a pioneer in the development of digitalisation. The development of smart Tampere has been promoted in every council term in this millennium.

- The development of digitalisation has been part of the daily life of the City of Tampere for a long time. We are currently working to find a way to utilise data and artificial intelligence in carrying out a city organisation's basic task, which is to provide a better living and operating environment for people and businesses, says Outi Valkama, Programme Manager of the Data-Driven City for Citizens development programme.

Services that meet residents’ needs

The city’s multidisciplinary development teams have technical experts but also people who make user experiences and needs a part of the development work. The development work is always human-driven.

-We do not measure success by the number of digital services, but instead by how well people feel that digitalisation is making services work genuinely better. Tampere is a pioneer in including technology in the principles of good governance, Outi Valkama explains.

-We want to introduce the benefits of digitalisation to every local resident’s day-to-day life. When a user feels that the service is an easy and natural part of their everyday life, they do not need special expertise in using different smart devices. At the moment, we must understand technology, but in the future, technology must understand us, says Teppo Rantanen, Director of the Tampere Growth, Innovation and Competitiveness Services.  

Bringing two worlds together

Tampere is known around the world as a pioneer in the area of smart cities. Individual smart projects have received a lot of international recognition. Last summer, the city drew up the Tampere Metaverse Vision 2040 publication, which has attracted a great deal of international interest. The metaverse is used for purposes such as building a digital twin of the urban environment of Tampere and bringing the virtual and physical reality together for the everyday needs of city residents.  
This creates a vast number of new opportunities.

Working at the forefront of digital transformation creates opportunities for taking a peek at future technologies. It may well be that by the end of the next decade, the GPS systems of mobile phones and cars, for example, have been replaced by smart glasses that look like normal glasses, guiding pedestrians to the desired places. The experience is more reminiscent of normal behaviour without technology, for example because generative artificial intelligence understands speech.

Only ethically sustainable solutions

The development of digitalisation involves a large number of ethical perspectives, which must be considered especially when creating a smart system for the needs of public administration. As a part of her job, Sanni Pöntinen, Development Specialist at the City of Tampere, reflects on the ethical use of data and artificial intelligence. She reminds us that all development must occur from a human-driven perspective. Technology is not an intrinsic value, but its aim is to benefit people. Whenever developing new solutions, aspects to consider include equality, fairness, transparency, explainability as well as security and protection of privacy.  

- While several regulations guide development, ethical consideration is also needed. New technologies affect individuals and society in the short and long term. This is why the development of smart cities concerns all municipal residents, from companies to communities and, of course, politics, Pöntinen explains.

- Ultimately, any new technology is just a tool that we, as people, control. People will also be the ones making decisions in the smart city of the future. Technology enables us to better provide decision-makers with information that allows them to make the right decisions, explains Development Manager Tiia Joki.

Metaverse is part of the future of Tampere, that is for certain.

- The names we use for things may change, but the content will remain as it is: virtual and physical reality will be linked together, that is the way of the future, Teppo Rantanen says.