Smart City Digital Twins

Digital Twin technologies are in a promising development phase. The potential for Smart City development with Digital Twin technologies and solutions is broad with benefits to society, economy, business and environment. The Smart City Digital Twins project focuses on making better use of public sector open data and thereby promoting sustainable economic growth in urban areas in Finland. The project explores the potential of the digital twins to promote the green transition, support equal working life and improve the well-being of citizens, and facilitates adoption of advanced technologies in the subsequent larger project.

The project supports the improvement of research and innovation capabilities and the introduction of advanced technologies in terms of R&D activities as follows: (1) by strengthening know-how, foresight and innovation activities by promoting development related to digital twins, piloting capabilities, the introduction and utilization of possible commercial applications based on the development model of the Public-Private cooperation model, (2) by supporting the implementation process of introducing new innovative and smart solutions in the regional development context, (3) by supporting the development of piloting and development environments of cities and municipalities regarding the implementation of digital twins, (4) increasing know-how regarding innovative and sustainable public procurement and their utilization, and (5) promoting a green, socially just green transition to technological innovations, business innovations and social based on the planned introduction of innovations. The general goal is to increase the effectiveness of R&D activities.

The project in itself implements and develops the RDI cooperation model, because the project is implemented in cooperation with the University of Turku, Turku University of Applied Sciences and Turku Science Park. The project aims to increase and develop cooperation between business life and research in Finland. The applications processed within the scope of the project support working life-oriented applications related to the quality of working life, innovations that improve citizens’ well-being and work productivity, and nature-saving applications that are important for the green transition. The project has a clear connection to smart specialization strategies in Finland. The connection to the smart specialization strategy (S3) consists of identifying relative advantage factors, supporting resilience factors and taking into account the innovation investments made. These three strategic S3 variables to support the entrepreneurial new development process (Entrepreneurial Discovery Process, EDP) in regional economies. In this concrete way the project is supporting high-level innovation potential in Finland. The parties implementing the project have done a basic study of Finland’s smart specialization strategy in their previous studies, and these studies have also been taken into account elsewhere in Europe.

As an increasing proportion of work is related to data utilization and information work, there are many indirect effects, for example, on improving employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Utilizing open data is also related to improving the business and business opportunities of companies. In this sense, the project pays special attention to Public-Private-People cooperation and its potential. The value of data, including open data, is not realized if it is not utilized in value chains. The value of open data is based on the assumption of matching supply and demand. Identifying the matching problem and presenting clear solutions are part of the project’s objectives. The development of smart urban development models requires a better solution to this problem.