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This article was published on February 4, 2012

20 cities want your innovative ideas for a better future


20 cities want your innovative ideas for a better future

A gym that lets humans generate energy for a Spanish city; open data about obesity levels in the Netherlands; a smart bus network navigation system in Japan, and a wireless network to control street lights; monitor car parking spaces and more in San Francisco. These are just some of the solutions being asked for by cities around the world as part of the Living Labs Global Award.

Living Labs Global is a non-profit association which promotes new technologies and services in cities. In all, twenty cities have partnered with the organisation to identify innovative solutions to problems around tourism, transport, health and open government.

The twenty cities are currently looking for ideas to be submitted, with winning solutions set to be announced in May. From there, pilot projects will test out each winner’s viability.

Previous winners of the competition have included a smart real-time peer-to-peer parking system in Stockholm and an open data citizen participation platform in San Francisco.

The cities taking part this year are Barcelona, Birmingham, Caceres, Cape Town, Coventry, Derry~Londonderry, Eindhoven, Fukuoka, Glasgow, Guadelajara, Hamburg, Lagos, Lavasa, Kristiansand, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Santiago de Chile and Terrassa.

You can browse everything that the cities are looking for, and submit your idea on the Awards website, but hurry – the deadline is 17 February 2012.

➤ Living Labs Global Award 2012

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