Goals / challenges

Strategy for Stockholm as a smart and connected city:

The progress of digitalization and new technologies, within areas such as the Internet of Things, big data and analysis, leads to new possibilities. At the same time, Stockholm is rapidly changing as a result of urbanization, globalization and increased life expectancy. Therefore, a strategy for Stockholm as a smart and connected city has been developed in collaboration with the City of Stockholm’s employees, residents, businesses and academia.  The strategy was formally adopted by the City Council of Stockholm on April 3, 2017.

The core of the strategy’s target vision shows the goal of the strategy and the City’s digitalization efforts – to provide the highest quality of life for the Stockholm inhabitants and the best entrepreneurial climate. These objectives are achieved by Stockholm, through innovative solutions, transparency and connectivity, as well as by becoming more economically, ecologically, democratically and socially sustainable.

The strategy for Stockholm as a smart and connected city mainly focuses on the opportunities that arise with development in areas such as the Internet of Things, big data and analysis. This means that the strategy, through new services and features, is concentrated on Stockholm as a physical place rather than the organization City of Stockholm. The implementation of the strategy thus represents a subset of the city’s overall work on digital development, as described in and governed by the City of Stockholm’s digitalization program.

The smart city is made possible through connectivity and open data, integrated platforms, sensors and other technologies. Guidelines for the use of technologies and other enabling factors are described in the strategy, as well as success factors and implementation principles.

The City Council’s formal adaptation implies that the strategy and its principles is to be followed and implemented by all of the City’s operations. Implementation of the strategy is essentially a matter for the operations and not an IT issue.

To reach the target image of Stockholm as a smart and connected city, a number of enabling factors are necessary. In the strategy, these are divided into three main areas: operations, technology (including applications and services, digital platforms and IT infrastructure, as well as information security and privacy), and principles for costs distribution.

These are outlined in the strategy. Enablers in operations as well as parts of the City’s technical architecture are detailed in the framework of the City’s digitalization program with associated guidelines. To guide the core areas and the development of the technology that enables the smart city, seven strategic principles have been developed and pursued by the City. The strategic principles are an important tool for achieving digital sustainability. Digital sustainability refers to solutions being designed so they can be used in the long-term, cost-effectively and that they are easy to incrementally develop, reuse, and connect.

The implementation of the strategy consists of three main areas: coordination and collaboration (internally and externally, which implies commitment and responsibility for all parties), communication (and dialogue with residents), as well as prioritized projects (described below). To guide and coordinate the implementation of the strategy, eight principles for implementation has been developed to be pursued by the City.

The principles for implementation are an essential tool for achieving a common direction towards the target vision, to ensure proactivity and to avoid solutions that are developed in silos.

To ensure that the target vision of the smart city is reached, relevant projects that meet the City’s needs and are in line with the objectives of the target vision need to be developed. In the implementation of the strategy, a number of high-priority centrally funded projects are identified to kick-start and support its implementation. A central principle of the strategy is that the prioritized operations will be implemented in parallel and integrated with the projects for legal, organizational and not least the technical conditions that aim to establish basic platforms and processes. This is required in order to realize the strategy’s vision in a sustainable way.

It is important to acknowledge that it is the operation’s needs and development opportunities that controls the technical progress of the strategy’s implementation, not the other way around.

Preferred operation are assessed based on a number of criteria, that should be in line with the target vision and the City’s mission. They need also have good feasibility, be long-term, scalable and assessed to provide great benefits and impact on one or more target groups. The selection criteria should also take into account an increased collaboration between different operations and decreased silo structures.