City of Stockholm Study Tours:

By the year 2030 the inhabitants in Stockholm will have increased by 20 percent. The calculated change in population is a great challenge for the city.

• How will Stockholm maintain the high level of service to its inhabitants?
• How will it meet a higher demand in infrastructure and housing?
• How can business and trade make best use of the change in population?

To answer some of these questions the City of Stockholm has arranged for you to participate in one of eight Study Tours that looks into various aspects of these issues. The Study Tours will take place on Friday, 8 December from 13:00-15:00. These Study Tours are offered in conjunction with the Summit, but are completely voluntary for those that would like to participate. Buses will depart from the Clarion Hotel where the Summit will be kicking off on Friday evening. Each Study Tour is limited to 20 attendees.

Following is a description of each Study Tour and what the City of Stockholm plans to showcase. Participants will also see some of the beautiful sights of Stockholm on the way to and from the study visits.

1. Kista Mobile & Broadband Showcase

Kista Mobile Showcase shall increase the knowledge of mobile services that Kista, the region around Stockholm, and Sweden at large has to offer. In a guided tour, in the Kista Mall, users have an opportunity to experience the latest within the field of mobile applications, services and technologies.

The Kista Showcase is unique with regards to its independence and the fact that the demonstrations are displayed in a real world environment, in combination with a multitude of applications and services.

Every Delegate will experience various services and technologies with the aid of PDAs and smartphones. Kista Mall is a partner in the project and the mall is a natural setting for the mobile demonstrations where services and location is connected in a unique way.

For example, when multimedia is demonstrated, this is done outside the cinema where the service most probably would be used in a real life situation. Delegates will get a feeling of the opportunities with the mobile services that are present today and what is ahead in the near future.

The showcase was initiated by Kista Science City, and has project partners mainly from the Stockholm area but also from other parts of Sweden.

For more information please visit www.kistashowcase.com

2. Bromma Contact Centre – an advanced new call centre

Bromma Contact Centre is a two year development project that started in 2004. The final results will be evaluated in December 2006. It is a new kind of public call centre, the first one within Greater Stockholm, with ten employees including an information unit.

The Contact Centre is situated in Bromma, a city district in Stockholm with 60,000 inhabitants. The majority of whom live in private houses, and only a 10 minutes’ drive from the city centre.

The objective of Bromma Contact Centre is to be able to answer at least 70% of all incoming questions from citizens. The Contact Centre can also be used as an information tool, i.e. regarding citizens’ expectations of Bromma District Council’s public services.

Bromma Contact Centre takes decisions in cases such as:

• transportation services and housing allowances for the elderly and the disabled
• registration of applications for child care
• booking appointments for the social officers

Every week Bromma Contact Centre receives between 2,000 and 3,000 calls. “Ask Jeanette”, a local web assistant service is an important tool to support the work of the Contact Centre. The answers are registered in databases which can be used for external as well as internal support.

When offering the customers swift and accessible services over the phone and on the Internet and optimizing the service of these two channels, the calls to the social officers decreases and they can deal with more complicated cases which require personal contact.

The Contact Centre tries to decrease the number of questions over the phone by offering up-to-date information on our web site.

Since almost all the citizens in Bromma use broadband, the Contact Centre can offer interactive services/self service 24 hours a day, e.g. applying for child care over the Internet.

The Contact Centre will extend and broaden its activities and increase the number of services.

3. The Arena for Digital Services

The City of Stockholm together with Stockholm County have taken the initiative to form Arenan för Digitala Tjänster (The Arena for Digital Services) with the purpose to support the process from idea to launched service over the broadband networks.

The development of new digital services is driven by the small and medium sized companies (SME) – not the big corporations that have well established, ongoing business to focus on. The SMEs are the quickest and most innovative, but at the same time they face serious challenges in the form of lack of capital, information, relevant customer contacts and a customer base to test their new services with. Ironically enough, while being the most innovative, they are thus at the same time the ones who encounter the biggest difficulties in entering the market. The Arena helps introduce the SMEs into the community networks and assists the operators of broadband networks to broaden the scope of their offering.

This is done by means of:

• The Meeting Place, containing a database of digital services and also offering the opportunity to meet customers, at recurring meetings where SMEs can present and demonstrate their services for potential users and operators. Furthermore, to stimulate cross-fertilization of ideas, the possibility is offered to explore and discuss different requests, demands, problems, solutions and ideas;
• The Test Market, offering the SMEs the opportunity to conduct broad market tests over several different networks thanks to the Arena’s cooperation with several broadband operators;
• The Pool of Experiences, offering business support, information about the law of Public Procurement, other relevant information, Venture Capital contacts, etc.

The Arena is also cooperating with a number of international developers of digital services, primarily within the sector of health care and assistance.

4. Empowered Living - a three-year coordinated project

From 2004 to 2007, the Empowered Living project will make it easier for people with cognitive disabilities, both young and old, to live a more independent life. One of the strongest driving forces in our lives is trying to do things by ourselves, no matter what age we are, and the correct technical assistance can help or actually enable people who currently rely on others to live an independent life.

The Swedish Handicap Institute has received money from the Swedish Inheritance Fund to run the Empowered Living project in conjunction with the Swedish Disability Federation and three municipalities in Sweden.

The target group for this project is people with cognitive disabilities. These people often find it difficult to remember things, to orientate in time and space, and to solve problems. At home, they may forget to turn off the oven/taps, forget to eat/take their medicine or leave the house without locking up and without shutting doors and windows. These are major problems for these people and place high demands on those around them, including relatives, home help services, primary healthcare services and/or travel escorts.

In the project, we will test the latest technological solutions, including different assistive devices and communication solutions. They will be tested at local level in three different municipalities in Sweden - Stockholm (Hässelby-Vällingby), Tierp and Hudiksvall. New working methods and assistive devices will be tried and tested. All the solutions have been based on the needs of the users themselves. The aim is to speed up the development of technical assistive devices, which can increase the quality of life for both the users and their relatives. We will use practical solutions to show how important technological solutions can be when it comes to independence and increased confidence. The aim of the project is also to spread awareness of the opportunities created by this new technology among decision-makers in the municipalities and county councils, housing companies and staff within home help and primary healthcare services. Special development grants will also be offered through this project to promote the development of knowledge, methods, products and services. Municipalities, county councils, staff groups, disability organisations, companies, etc. are welcome to apply for these grants. The Swedish Handicap Institute will also run courses on technology in the home for different staff groups and housing companies.

5. The e-Centre in the New Town of Vällingby

The e-Centre in Vällingby is an initiative driven by a large group of local and national partners who have come together to form an economic association. The goal of e-Centret is to drive a future way of information and services for the community and to give every citizen a chance to benefit from the new possibilities offered by information technology.

The work being developed at the e-Centre today is centered on a cross media strategy. The focus of this strategy begins with broadband television services, using the current national transition to a digital television infrastructure as a way to bring interactive services to every strata of society, including the elderly, disabled, and low income segments, who often get left behind in the current development of Internet-based services.

The e-Centre is currently running a pilot project, which includes interactive and informational services that have never been developed before. They range from e-Government services to book a slot at the local laundromat using only a set top box, a television and a remote control. Many new services are in line to be developed. e-Centret is growing continually and new members are joining the drive.

In the 1950s Vällingby Centrum became a role model for urban development planning. Decision makers, politicians, architects etc from all over the World came to Vällingby to be inspired. In the same way, the e-Centre intends to set standards for the digital information infrastructure, on a local, national and international level. Welcome to the e-Centre!

6. Helios – Stockholm Fire Department’s GIS system for analysis and support in decision-making and other examples of GIS applications

How many residents are there near the incident site? Are there often fires in a particular geographical area? These are some of the questions that can be analysed using the system, to create a basis for decision-making.

HELIOS is a GIS system developed by the Stockholm Fire Department for analysis and support in decision-making. The system is used for operational management work, preventive activities, risk analyses and long-term planning regarding the focus of the fire department’s operations.

The system processes and presents operational data on previous incidents and potential risks for presentation along with geographical data. The system has been in operation since 2001, since when it has had various map-based material added, along with data on population, journey times, gas and fire hydrant networks, road tunnels, etc. It is now an established operational system within the fire department. Trials regarding the tracking of vehicles are currently underway.

The City of Stockholm uses Geographical Information System GIS extensively for a number of City Administrations. This study visit demonstrates two general information infrastructures related to geographical information and an example of how observations of endangered species can be made easily available.

The comprehensive GIS map.

The comprehensive GIS map is a general infrastructure that carries information about various aspects of geographically connected data concerning the city. The study visit demonstrates how the City has used the comprehensive GIS map as a general database for many purposes and applications.

The local road database

The local road database is another example of the “soft information infrastructure” in Stockholm that integrates a number of earlier separate databases to give accurate and up to date information of the road network in Stockholm, based on a general information format.. The information is presented in a number of ways. The local road database interacts with the national road database and gives a comprehensive view of what is going on in the city at a particular point in time. The study visit gives a demonstration of the local road database and is various applications and takes place in the centre of the city.

Artarken – a map over endangered species

Artarken is based on the comprehensive GIS system of the City. It is one of several applications in the City, used by the environment administration. Through the Artarken, it is possible to search for observations of particular endangered species, mapped on the GIS maps. A neat and inspiring generic application.

7. Tensta gymnasium

Tensta gymnasium is a public upper secondary school in Stockholm. It’s a suburban school with a multicultural environment. Tensta gymnasium has implemented a development project called the Tensta-Ross project which has changed the world at the school completely.

In short, the Tensta-Ross project at Tensta gymnasium tries to get the students to see the world in its entirety. At Tensta they want to take the students on a learning trip from the dawn of world history right up to the present. They’ll base this trip on the subject of history. At school they have active students who are learning to assume responsibility.

Major access to Information Technology is one of the guiding principles of the new working method. All the students and teachers who work in accordance with the Ross Model use laptop computers that are connected to a wireless network. In two years time they have changed from 100 stationary computers to 700 wireless laptops.

The entire student must feel good, eat well, be active and have a positive school environment. These are the foundational principals of the Ross Model. Visit the Tensta gymnasium to feel the unique atmosphere at the school and to be inspired by their way of facing the challenges of the future.