Urbanage

Civic Engagement
Urban Planning
Digital Twins
Digital Participation

The Urbanage project aims to assess the potential benefits, risks and impact of using disruptive technologies for evidence-based decision-making in the field of urban planning for age-friendly cities.

European cities and policymakers are faced with an increasingly aging urban population (Ageing Europe Eurostat, 2020), challenging them to adapt their urban planning and policymaking strategies to become more age-friendly i.e., tailored to the needs of an older population. In parallel, emerging smart city technologies generate new and large amounts of data that fuel data-driven policymaking processes. With the “right” analytical digital tools and technologies and with the “right” analytical capabilities, this can be employed to gain better insights into current and future urban patterns and citizen behaviors. Tapping into both trends, the URBANAGE project was conceived with the intent to enhance data-driven decision-making by policy makers in the field of urban planning of age-friendly cities. To this end, the project will develop a sustainable and long-term URBANAGE ecosystem that integrates several disruptive technologies (such as multidimensional big data analysis; modelling and simulation with Artificial Intelligence algorithms; and visualization through Urban Digital twins) and synchronizes those with user needs and requirements.

We at imec-mict-UGent contribute to the understanding these user needs and the validation of the URBANAGE solutions’ relevance and value to end users. Hence, we support the long-term applicability and relevance of these solutions to both types of end users (policymakers and older adults). This is realized through a collaborative and inclusive co-creation strategy.

Partners: imec.EDIT, Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, Tecnalia, Athens Technology Center, University of Helsinki, 21C, Consulting Informatico, AGE Platform Europe, Forum Virium Helsinki, AAL, Informatie Vlaanderen, city of Santander

Project duration: 2021-2024

Contact: Bastiaan Baccarne