Smart People - Smart Economy - Smart CitiesSteinbeis Europa Zentrum developed business models for urban districts

Steinbeis Europa Zentrum developed business models for urban districts

After six years of project duration and joint efforts of 27 partners from six countries to make sustainable cities with environmentally conscious people and an adaptive economy a reality, the partners of the Smart Cities project mySMARTLife presented their results to a broad public at a final conference in September 2022 in Hamburg. Therefore, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum and the mySMARTLife partners have jointly developed a brochure summarising the most important solutions and best practices.

Steinbeis Europa Zentrum co-initiated the Smart City project mySMARTLife and brought CARTIF from Spain as coordinator into the project. As a project partner, it was in charge of innovation management, communication and public relations. As part of innovation management, it analyzed the expected results, considered the market opportunities, and developed an exploitation plan and business models.

In mySMARTLife, 150 solutions were developed in the lighthouse cities of Hamburg, Nantes and Helsinki to transform cities into more sustainable, inclusive and environmentally friendly places and to reduce CO₂ emissions in cities. The use of renewable energy sources, mobility measures and digital urban platforms contributed to this. The solutions developed were replicated in the follower cities of Bydgoszcz, Rijeka and Palencia. (Funding: European Commission, H2020)

Replicate – Exploit – Develop business models – the impact of Steinbeis Europa Zentrum

The exploitation activities focused on the industry partners in the participating cities and their needs, challenges and possible solutions. The applied exploitation methodology of Steinbeis Europa Zentrum was divided into seven main parts focusing on IPR management, market introduction and knowledge transfer.

The first six months focused on defining the exploitation and market deployment strategy. To identify the exploitable results and the steps towards market introduction, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum conducted three workshops between February 2018 and September 2019. Based on these, the most promising results were selected. Four technology areas were chosen: Smart Lighting, Tenant Power, Heat Demand Response Services and Open Urban Platform. For the defined focal topics, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum regularly compiled a catalogue of cooperation profiles and distributed it to all 27 project partners.

To drive exploitation and market introduction for the selected results, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum conducted 12 patent analyses and prepared a roadmap and business plan on business opportunities and initial business models. Throughout the project, several knowledge transfer workshops and webinars were conducted with the members of the Lighthouse Cities, the Follower Cities and the mySMARTLife Cities Network.

Pilot application in Helsinki "Heat Demand Response Services".

With a view to optimising heat production in the demonstration area in Helsinki, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum supported the three Finnish companies Helen Oy (municipal utility of the city of Helsinki), "Salusfin Oy", a service provider for energy management and smart living, and "Fourdeg Oy", a provider of smart heating solutions, in the exploitation of their Heat Demand Response Services. For the solution, market analysis and a roadmap for the exploitation of the complementary technologies and services of these three Finnish companies was created. The companies can thus optimise their respective business strategies.

In addition, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum has supported all three Finnish companies in patent analysis by developing a global screening of all relevant patentable technologies. This analysis helps strengthen the companies' business intelligence. They learn who their competitors are, where and since when competing technologies are being developed and which research institutions are active on the subject. This facilitates future collaborations and further developments.

"Many thanks to Steinbeis Europa Zentrum for this helpful and interesting document. Really nice graphs and tables you and your team have created, especially the ones showing the relationships between companies that could cooperate in the future to further develop our technology."

Henrik Jakobsson, Salusfin Oy, Helsinki, Partner in mySMARTLife

Further Information:

• Infosheet Heat Demand Response in Helsinki: Heat_demand_response.pdf (mysmartlife.eu)
• Project website: mySMARTLife - MySMARTLife
• Brochure: https://www.mysmartlife.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/mySMARTLife_booklet_WEB_final.pdf