Helping citizens become stakeholders in the smart city

Goal of the call for projects:

The goal of the call for projects is to identify innovative solutions that put the citizen back at the heart of the smart city and contribute to the local area’s energy transition.

Solutions should therefore focus on energy (economics, prevention of fuel poverty, storage, production, distribution, regulation) and may be technological, digital, societal, educational or financial as well as commercial. Selected projects will be tested on a site within the Urban Community of Grand Paris Seine and Oise.
The solutions could be aimed at specific groups of people or the wider community.

Deadline for applications: October 30th, 2016

Rewards and benefits:

The selected projects will receive free membership for 2 years to the SEINERGY LAB (as a simple member), giving them access to:

• A special of network SMEs, large companies (ENGIE, Schneider Electric, Legrand, Veolia Environnement, AIRBUS, ...) and institutions of higher who have partnered with the SEINERGY LAB. They will promote the development of operational projects and the creation of partnerships.
• Greater visibility at events sponsored by SEINERGY LAB and its members as well as being highlighted in the media by the call for project partners,
• Experimental tools at SEINERGY LAB including a show apartment and equipment for testing energy efficiency
• Working groups and sharing networks and potentially being integrated into projects of other SEINERGY Lab partners.
• An area in which to test and demonstrate their solution at a broad scale: the urban community of Grand Paris Seine et Oise (GPS&O), which co-financed SEINERGY Lab
• Help from GPS&O, an urban community of 400,000 residents.

Who is this call for projects for?

Startups, SMEs, entrepreneurs, researchers, students, universities, non-profit associations whose scope covers the Ile-de-France Region. Individuals are also eligible to participate

Detailed description:

Having earned the label "Local areas for positive energy for green growth" and "excellence and equal opportunity student accommodations" SEINERGY LAB is also part of the "10 local area initiatives of reference" in a report on best practices in local government innovation published in April 2015.

Naturally, and with the full support of the Urban Community of Grand Paris Seine and Oise and ENGIE, SEINERGY LAB is now launching the call for projects entitled "Making citizens active stakeholders in the smart city" which is a logical extension of its initiatives in the smart city, the energy transition and supporting creativity, innovation and talent.

France aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of four by 2050 as compared to 1990 levels. Some mechanisms already exist to help households save energy. But the results are not sufficient, and we can question what aspects of this broad program should be assigned to citizens.

The smart city is a city made up of four basic elements: infrastructure, public areas, governance structures – which deliver on and guarantee the public interest – and citizens. Residents therefore have a broad range of potential ways to get involved in the smart city, for example by producing energy, helping to regulate public spaces, by initiating or promoting new uses, etc.

The solutions submitted should focus on energy and can be technological, digital, societal, educational or financial as well as commercial. The one(s) selected will be tested or demonstrated within the Urban Community of Grand Paris Seine and Oise.

The solutions should:

• target specific groups or the population as a whole;
• serve citizens, making them better able to act independently on their energy needs, or serve the community as a whole.

Eligibility and selection criteria:

• Innovative nature of the project while fitting with the subject
• Added value for the local area
• Level of social and societal acceptability
• Potential for development and replicability, primarily in the Urban Community of GPS&O
• Ability to be launched soon
• Ease of implementation
• Cost/effectiveness ratio
• Solidity of the proposed business model: the project leader should give details about target markets as well as the financial and human resources needed

Selection Procedure:

• Shortlisting of finalists based on their applications
• 15-minute pitch from each finalist for the selection committee to help them better understand the projects and select winners.
• Selection of winning projects at the latest in the last quarter of 2016.

Provisional timetable:

• June 9, 2016: Launch of the call for projects.
• October 31st, 2016: Deadline for submitting applications (between 6 and 10 weeks).
• After November 25th, 2016: Pitch from selected projects to the committee.
• Announcement of the winner after Dedember 1st, 2016

Selection Committee and the call for project partners:

• ENGIE Group
• Seinergy Lab
• CU Grand Paris Seine and Oise

Partners of the Call for proposals:

ENGIE puts responsible growth at the heart of its businesses (electricity, natural gas, energy services) to address the major challenges of energy transition to a low carbon economy. The Group supports these changes by putting innovation at the heart of its strategy. www.engie.com

As a 1901 law association, SEINERGY LAB is a totally new collaborative innovation center for innovation, training and testing projects on energy and the city of tomorrow.

Deeply rooted in the Urban Community of Grand Paris Seine and Oise (CU GPS & O) with an innovative, collaborative form of governance and pooling the resources of its members, SEINERGY LAB:

• creates exceptional technical equipment for training and research such as a test apartment and experimental chamber;
• promotes synergies between its members to give birth to innovative projects within the two Strategic Business Areas, Talents of tomorrow & Local areas of tomorrow;
• provides access to a database of unique data on energy, its uses and the energy transition in the area, which is continually updated by the collection and generation of new data,
• involves a high value-added network and is a prime showcase for university and lower school students, trainees, teachers, researchers and contractors involved in the sustainable city, as well as for the general public

www.seinergylab.fr

CU GPS & O: Having emerged on 1 January 2016 from the merger of six intercommunal structures, "Grand Paris Seine and Oise" is the first urban community of France. It covers 500 square kilometers and more than 400 000 inhabitants from 73 municipalities around the urban centers of Mantes-la-Jolie Les Mureaux and Poissy. The area is connected to the city of Paris via the A14, A13 and soon by the RER E EOLE, which will arrive in 2022. "Grand Paris Seine and Oise" is thus one of the strategic links of the Grand Paris, at the heart of major projects in the Seine Valley. Aerospace, automotive, robotics, sustainable building, agriculture, equipment manufacturing and higher education make this area a laboratory for innovation.