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Mayor John Jorritsma headed a Brainport Eindhoven delegation of tech startups, companies, and public officials on a Smart City mission to Barcelona from 14 to 16 November 2017. Their goal was to find business for their key Smart City initiatives and to forge and foster Smart City partnerships with leading cities from around the globe.

An extensive report on the three days in Barcelona, with all the participating companies, the expos, keynotes and presentations on this Brainport blog post by Harald Wouters.

One of Jorritsma’s speeches focused on using living labs to become a smart society:

“I strongly believe in the importance of living labs. Approving to start with a living lab is about trial and error, working with Quadruple Helix partners towards a common goal. It is not without risks for a politician. However, it’s my firm belief that this is the only way forward in this complex world. I also know that it facilitates and adds an extra energy to the municipal staff and other stakeholders that will have to implement it on the ground. We need to experiment and learn by trial and error. We have to facilitate the partners in our quadruple helix and others, just to get into the mainstream of Smart Cities and eventually a Smart Society.”

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