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New paper: An Investigation on the Feasibility of Near-Zero and Positive Energy Communities in the Greek Context
This paper is following the EU target of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Near Zero Energy and Positive Energy communities are expected to play a significant part of the strategy that will be followed. Within this context, the authors aim to investigate the feasibility of a new-built positive energy neighborhood and the retrofit of an existing neighborhood to near zero energy performance in the city of Alexandroupolis, Greece. The study may act as a roadmap for the uptake and development of positive energy and near-zero energy communities in Greek Cities, similar to Alexandroupolis. Furthermore, it can be used as a decision support tool for policy makers, when assessing alternative options towards the path of decarbonization of EU economy by 2050.
The workshop on ‘The role of smart cities in meeting objectives of the Green Deal’ will showcase smart city data services and digital twins of cities that also use INSPIRE data, in support of the environmental and climate objectives of the Green Deal. It will and bring together various stakeholders with the objective of discussing the governance model of urban data and the potential Artificial Intelligence has in this helping smart cities meeting the objectives of the Green Deal. 
The 4th International Symposium “New Metropolitan Perspectives” is taking place online from the 26th to the 28th of May, 2020. It is held in English with some sessions in Italian.
The rise of the online economy is based on the opportunities to extract value from data that is produced by digital technologies. As opposed to data brokers that gain value buying and selling personal information, this report argues for radically new ideas about how the value of our personal information can be returned back to citizens. Rather than focusing on how making money from data, it focuses on how data can benefit society as a whole, exploring the idea of ‘data commons’. The report is entitled “Common Knowledge: Citizen-led data governance for better cities” and is part of the decode H2020 project.
Sidewalk Toronto project, developed by Sidewalk Labs, was suspended earlier this month. The company claimed “unprecedented economic uncertainty” caused by the current pandemic.
Sharing has become a global phenomenon; business models, social innovations and technological developments enable an escalated number of uses for a given asset, resulting in reshaped urban dynamics, practices and morphologies.
