Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Tamlyn Shimizu: Welcome to Smart in the City, the BABLE podcast, where you bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations. I'm your host, Tamlyn Shimizu, and I hope you enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
So welcome back to another episode. I am sitting here in the beautiful city of Istanbul and we just had the lovely experience of the Urban Innovation Leadership Forum, which BABLE had the honor of putting on together with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. And I have gotten the chance to sit down with one of the guests here today and it was just really an amazing experience, getting to experience the last couple of days with him as well. So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Barthélémy Rochat. He's a Chief Digital Officer, CDO at the City of Biel/Bienne. Welcome.
[00:01:00] Barthélémy Rochat: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the invitation and for this beautiful event and organization.
I've already told you, I'm a big fan of the podcast. I really loved each every episode to hear for from other public servants their idea, how what they do, their project. This is amazing. And thank you for the invitation.
[00:01:23] Tamlyn Shimizu: It's absolutely our pleasure. And it makes me really happy whenever I meet someone and they're like, oh, we. I've listened to almost every episode of the podcast before. That just makes me happy because I know people are listening and learning from what we're doing. So thanks so much for that as well and I'm excited to hear more from you.
So, as you know, because you're an avid podcast listener to Smart in the City, we like to start off with a bit of a teaser question. And the teaser question I have for you today is a classic as well. So you've heard it before. If Biel or Bien were an animal, which animal would it be and why?
[00:02:02] Barthélémy Rochat: So it's a difficult question.
I come up with a beaver. Oh, a beaver. Because it's. It's a cute animal, but it's still a bit strange. It's a social animal, but can be, yeah, can be a bit strange animal. It's a fine wood walker, a good walker. And I think Bien as an industrial city, as a watchmaking capital, has a lot of good and precise workers. I think there is a similarity there. Vienna is also a city by a lake and with rivers crossing it. And we have actually real beavers within the city.
They are sometimes nasty, they are sometimes causing problems because they are cutting trees and blocking rivers. Know beavers because they are fun, they are social and they are a little different.
[00:03:03] Tamlyn Shimizu: Sounds good. You found a good animal. When we were talking the other day, you're like, that's the hardest question is to find the animal.
[00:03:09] Barthélémy Rochat: So yeah, it took me basically one week to find an answer.
[00:03:15] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good, but very good answer. So I want to learn a little bit more about you as a person.
Tell us, tell me about your background. What's your story? How did you come into this role today?
[00:03:27] Barthélémy Rochat: Okay, so I studied mathematics and physics in Switzerland. I started working in an international company in Lausanne in business intelligence. I then worked in Zurich for the main Swiss telecom company, also in business intelligence sector. And then back in 2019 I had the opportunity to come and walk for the city where I grew up actually and where I was already living in. So it was a great opportunity to work where I was living. And I started in 2019 as a project digital project manager and then in 2020 as chief digital Officer.
[00:04:16] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very cool. I love hearing people's stories about how they ended up there. That's actually one of my favorite questions. So also very interesting background.
So tell, tell me about your city. What makes it unique? You said it's a little weird or funny, like a beaver. Tell me, tell me all about that and also tell me where you're at as far as digital transformation.
[00:04:39] Barthélémy Rochat: Yes. So what I like to say is that cities are, are unique, like every single city. So what we have specifically is we are very well located. Located. So we are one hour by train from Zurich, from Lausanne, from Basel, half an hour from the capital Bern. It's the 10th largest city in Switzerland with about 57,000 inhabitants. And it's, let's say a natural 10 minute city. So it's almost flat. It's really highly cyclable, has a very good public transportation. The lake around the Jura mountain next to it. So the quality of life there is pretty high. And it's not a big or huge city, so it still feels very comfortable.
It's also a bilingual city. So it sits between the French part and the German part. So there is 45% of the population speaking French and 55 speaking German. So that's also specific things about Vienne.
And it's very diverse and multicultural. So There is about 150 nationalities living in Vienna and therefore there is a vibrant cultural scene.
On top of that, as I already said it with the beaver story, that it's a historic industrial city, it's a global watchmaking capital. Hosting, for example, the. The Swatch Group headquarters. Swatch Group is producing Swatch watches, but also Omega Artiso Hamilton, for example, and it's also the largest Rolex production center. So just to know what is special about the city.
[00:06:36] Tamlyn Shimizu: So are people always on time in Switzerland?
[00:06:40] Barthélémy Rochat: People are generally on time or a little bit in advance not to.
[00:06:44] Tamlyn Shimizu: They all have nice watches, so there's no excuse, right?
[00:06:49] Barthélémy Rochat: Yeah, yeah, most of the time.
[00:06:52] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. And where, where are you at as far as digital transformation?
[00:06:56] Barthélémy Rochat: Yeah, so the digital transformation, you know, it's, it's, it's a journey. And since I started, and also the one before us, before we came there with our new management, I think we got already a lot of things right.
But as you probably know, a city is like.
Our city is like 50 different small companies. We have 2,000 people working for the city. And so the level of maturity or digital maturity from one sector to another can be very different. But overall, I think we are really progressing and progressing towards the right direction.
[00:07:42] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I want to dig into that a little bit more, but I also want to learn a little bit more from your perspective about how you see Switzerland as a whole. How do you see Switzerland positioning itself in the global digital landscape in comparison to maybe the rest of Europe, etc.
[00:08:00] Barthélémy Rochat: I think that's a very interesting question because during this week we are talking with a lot of people from very different countries. And the structure of the state has a big impact on how the digital transformation and innovation is being lived. So what can do, cannot do how it works. So in Switzerland, on the one hand, as you probably know, Switzerland is a federal country. So it means there are three levels of governance. There is the state level, the cantonal level, and then there is the municipal or the city level. And depending on where you live, the digital landscape can vary significantly because we all have different rules, different system in place, and each canton and each municipality has a certain degree of autonomy in implementing digital initiatives and policies. And on the other hand, you have Switzerland, which ranks first in the global innovation index since 14 years. So there is really a rich innovation ecosystem. But so if the federal system really helped us in the past to have and to keep a strong stability, it does not always help to leverage this innovation potential.
At government level and at the desired speed, things are slow.
[00:09:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: I hear that a lot. Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:38] Barthélémy Rochat: In general, in administration, things are slow. But in Switzerland, because of these three layers, things can. Yeah. Last for ages.
[00:09:47] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. When you have urgent issues, what do you think? What do you think could speed that up?
[00:09:54] Barthélémy Rochat: Collaboration Okay, I will. Yeah. This is something that helps to have engaged public servant who are ready to collaborate. That's one of the main thing to move things on.
[00:10:08] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So before this you told me that your team has a motto and I really like is set the digital foundations right to enable meaningful innovation. And so I've heard this from so many cities that they struggle with kind of the step, they get caught between kind of the legacy systems that they have in place and the need also to generate quick wins for the municipality. So I'm wondering if you can share from your personal experiences with your city, how have you balance this, these foundational improvements with tangible digital process progress? Sorry.
[00:10:47] Barthélémy Rochat: Yeah, so first, maybe a little of history. So you know that I started as a Chief digital officer in 2020, but that's, that's the COVID year and that's also the year when our. Yeah, but also accelerating year. It was, it was different year. Yeah, different years. And in, during that year our new cio, Elaine Murgadal joined us and joined the city and she brought a very user centered approach.
And we decided also to be very structured. So to develop the digital transformation based on established frameworks that are already in place very often in private companies. But we are taking them. I'm talking about the safe framework, for example, TOGAF for enterprise architecture or COBIT for governance of it.
By the way, I am in the IT department, so that's why she's my boss, the cio.
But we try to take just enough elements from these frameworks that the elements that are really useful, we called it just framework or something like this. So that's the first thing. It's to be user centric and to be very structured, not to reinvent the wheel or as I say, sometimes to reinvent a squared wheel, which is even worse.
And then we developed a product portfolio covering all Citi stakeholders and working with them to globally improve digital maturity through this portfolio. So, so this brought a really robust governance and helped us to have really impactful innovation through all the portfolio. So that's what we tried to do and it worked and it helped us to really progress in a lot of fields.
[00:13:05] Tamlyn Shimizu: When you say that it worked, what does that mean? What was the element of success? Like, what were the KPIs to determine that success?
[00:13:14] Barthélémy Rochat: Okay, that's good question. So the first success is that we were able to collaborate with all different departments of the city, about 15 different departments. And we have a trust now between us and the different departments. So this is Already a success, because they were, and they are often tensions between those silos. So I think one of the first element of public transformation is breaking the silos. And we managed to break the silos. So we are working with them, actually, we are working for them. We are not an IT department in an IT company. We are an IT department in a city. So it means that whatever we do is to support some of the other functions. So that's the first thing. And then in each of the element of the portfolio, we were able to move forward to establish a structure. We have product manager, we have product owner on the business side, and we were able to put in place this structure and to move forward together to create a backlog of new features, new elements that people want, and to work on it for each of those products and to move forward. So this is really something that this structure helped us to achieve.
[00:14:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really interesting. I think a lot of cities are struggling to find that structure. So that's good to mention that you are emphasizing governance as a foundation for sustainable innovation. But innovation often comes from taking lots of risks and really challenging structures. Right. So is there a danger to being too structured with digital transformation?
Does that limit breakthroughs in innovation?
[00:15:09] Barthélémy Rochat: Yeah, it's a paradox. The danger is to be even slower. So if you bring more rules, more structure, more elements. But that's the idea. The idea is to keep the frame, because the frame is there. We have rules, we have laws, and we need to respect them. But inside those frames, we have the freedom to be agile. We have the freedom to collaborate, to discuss. One example that I could use is procurement.
Procurement is often something very difficult, almost painful. And when I came into the city, everything was done on paper. So when you have a big project, you get tons of papers with tons of questions. And here you can innovate through procurement. So if you put the base right, if you use the right tool for procurement, we have software as a service that help us to do procurement. It really help everything to be easier to be more structured. And procurement that, that is something very, very tedious and very something that takes a lot of time, is now much better. It's still sometimes a bit painful, but it's much easier than before.
[00:16:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: Do you know how long now it's taking you to procure innovation? Because this is something that we also track at BABLE, is how long does it take to procure an innovative solution. We found that on average it's around 22 months, which obviously for innovation is way too slow. But of course, some cities have really Found better keys to procurement, procuring innovative solutions. Do you have any kind of idea like a broad range at least of how long?
[00:17:05] Barthélémy Rochat: One factor, important factor is the amount that we need to invest. Because depending on the amount the way is very different. So sometimes one example is. I will take another example to make one very successful project.
In 2018, I think we started a project to procure all our school with informatic equipments. Because this is done at a municipality level. So we have the canton which set up the rules, what needs to be taught. But the equipment for the informatic is brought by the city.
And then it took a couple of years. But this project was more than. I think more than 11 millions or even more. Don't remember exactly. So the process to go through all the stage gate is really difficult because you need to plan the project, to architect the project. Then you go to the need to go to the executive level of the city and then you need to go to the legislative level of the city. And then in Switzerland, because we have a direct democracy, there is a vocation of the population. So the population of the city had to vote if they wanted to use this money to bring the equipment or not. And they said yes.
So then we could start and we could start to procure, so we could start to get the equipment and everything. So it really depends if it's a small amount, if we need to prototype and if we need to innovate or to check if something is working or not. We can do it pretty quickly directly if it's small amounts. But as soon as it gets larger, we need to go through these processes, which is also part of the democratic system. And that we accept.
[00:19:08] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great example. Thanks so much for sharing. I wonder if you can share also what is the best advice you have received when it comes to innovation? Of course. And what is the worst advice you have ever received?
[00:19:26] Barthélémy Rochat: Okay, so the best advice. I don't remember if I received it or. Because that's an advice that, that I give to my kids always. And I always tell them when they have a problem, something they need, I always tell them that there is always a solution, but it's not always the one that you would prefer.
And I think that's the same thing for innovation. There's always a way to move forward, but sometimes you need to compromise, you need to. To. To move a bit away of what you were originally thinking.
[00:20:03] Tamlyn Shimizu: I love that. And the worst advice, the worst advice.
[00:20:07] Barthélémy Rochat: That I. I heard from. It's not really an advice but it's something that you feel as advice when you start in a administration, it's don't move.
I have a friend of mine, I'm working with someone also for innovative solution. She's telling me, because she's working with administration but outside and she's telling me that's that's the best game that people in the administration like to play is the first who moves is losing. And sometimes it's a true problem. So you need to have really people who are motivated, who wants to move forward. And you need to find them, to go and find them and, and not to be static because this is impossible during this time that we are living now.
[00:20:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: I love that as well. I think also during this week we found so many of those motivated people that are really engaged and they really want to move things forward.
It must be very frustrating being in, you know, in a city and not being able to push things through. How do you deal with this frustration of always trying to push things forward through and keeping your motivation when things get stuck?
[00:21:29] Barthélémy Rochat: I think that working together with other partners, with colleagues that also do have the motivation, the result is that sometimes you are really, you don't have the same motivation, but they are still motivated and the opposite then when, when they are not motivated, you are still motivated. And you see and also when, for example, during this week to see what people can achieve, what people can do, it gives you the courage to try to copy, adapt, paste, to do the same thing for your city in a same way or a little bit different way. But if it worked there, why couldn't we do it and also move forward?
[00:22:12] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really, really powerful words there. I wonder also if you can share a little bit more about the challenges that you're still fac. It sounds like you've broken through some barriers since your time at the city, but what challenges are still really remaining for you and what do you think are the missing tools to really push that through? I know you've already mentioned collaboration. Is there anything else?
[00:22:37] Barthélémy Rochat: So I think a lot of people told that before, but digital transformation, transformation in general is first about organization, about people, about processes, about culture, and then at the end about tools. And I think one of the main challenge to really accelerate is having the right people at the right time to help moving forward.
This is what really make a difference, to find the right people that will help you, that will follow you, and together that we can do something positive. And I think we have a positive trend, at least in our city.
We are more and more surrounded by people that are really motivated that can bring things forward.
So in that perspective, things are really going in the right direction.
[00:23:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, good to hear. Is there any challenge right now that you're kind of stuck on or that's really keeping you up at night, I guess that you think would really help with getting the right people at the right time together?
[00:23:50] Barthélémy Rochat: I think we still need to be patient.
We don't always have the right people. We have the people we have.
And also as a manager, you know, when you have a team, I've heard something very interesting people told me when you do some management courses or something like that, they tell you, okay, when you start as a manager, you get to get the team that people give you.
That's how it is. But after one year, after two years, you have the team that you deserve. So you cannot always blame it on others. It's also your responsibility to do with what you have with the people you have and to move forward together. So I cannot complain really, because there are some issues, there are some things that are moving slowly. But overall, because we are working together, we can move forward. And also because there are so many challenges, you can also pick your fight. And you can also pick the fight where you know that the solution is there, that you can move a bit faster and when for all the problem where you don't have the solution, maybe in six months, one year, you can tackle this one and move on.
[00:25:11] Tamlyn Shimizu: Also sounds like a good plan. You mentioned to me this potential paradigm shift in the smart city space, the Internet of places. Can you break this down for me? What do you mean by that?
[00:25:28] Barthélémy Rochat: Yeah, you talk about the baby project. That's how you call it sometimes.
[00:25:32] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, it's your baby, you know.
[00:25:34] Barthélémy Rochat: Yeah, it's true. During this Urban Innovation Leadership forum, we talked a lot about how to get information and data at the right place and at the right moment. For example, during emergency crisis, to be able to take action and react as soon as possible. This is a big challenges we've heard, especially nowadays with the climate crisis and all the different crisis, it's getting fundamental. And my question is always, what about the citizen perspective? So, you know, despite digitalization and maybe sometimes because of it, it's sometimes very difficult to get the right information when and where you need it. We are overwhelmed by information. The information now is segmented on various channels and it gets really sometimes difficult to reach the population when something is happening.
We have as a city, so many channels to communicate. So we have a city website. We are on X.
We are still. We are on LinkedIn on Instagram, we have some web application, we have newspapers. And some cities have a lot of different things. But I remember in 2021 there was suddenly in the city, a short blackout in the evening and suddenly there was no electricity in the neighborhood. And I was already working for the city and I could reach the responsible for the communication. And he explained me what was the origin and he said, okay, we already communicated. So they put a line on our website and they did a tweet. But in the couple the next days, when I was asking people what happened, nobody had any idea. So it means that we were not reaching people. When we try to communicate, and this is a real issue, I think that we are overwhelmed by communication. But when it's about local communication, we don't reach the population anymore and the citizen don't get the information that we are sharing. We are communicating sometimes over communicating, but I think it has not really function always or often.
And the internal place, the idea is quite simple. It's to bring useful information where people are. And where people are that really means, for example, at the bus stop, at a city square, at home, at work. So to have the possibility to link specific places with specific information. And this has been done a lot. But here what we try to do is to be cross context. So it's not just about, I don't know, transportation or events. It's really about everything that makes sense for the people where they are. So for example, you are on the bus stop and of course you need to have the schedule of the bus. How long will you be waiting? This is normal. Every city tries to do that. But you can also inform people about what's happening in the area, in the 500 meters around this place, what's happening now, what will be happening this evening, or where can you shop for something or when you at home there is very important for the people, is the garbage collection. When can you put your garbage out? Something like this. So what we are trying to do is we are building a platform that we are testing and that allows to create this connection between places, people and information and to have it available across context and across perspective. So I think it's still a bit abstract when I tell you like this, but it's really about when you are out. You are here in Istanbul, you are in Sultanahmet in a place and you would like to know where can I go and eat, what's happening in the evening, what can I visit and what people are doing. They need to prepare two weeks in advance, because otherwise they will need to take their phone and if they have network then they need to search on Google. And Google for example, doesn't have the information about events. You don't know what's happening. So either you take a coffee break or trek to find the time to install two or three apps and to search what's happening today, or you just go randomly and knowing that there is all this information already available, It's a pity that we don't have a way to access this specific information, this local or hyper local information.
[00:30:47] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I like the way that you describe this. I think I've talked to many cities who are doing this in different ways. Right. Some people describe this more as like real time information at your fingertips, I suppose. Or also some of the goals of the cityverse that's happening as well. It's all kind of converging to meet similar goals. Right. Like giving people this hyperlocal information that they need at that point, at that time.
[00:31:12] Barthélémy Rochat: So I think that the Internet of Places could be an element of the cityverse to help reach these goals.
[00:31:22] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Really interesting. I love your perspective there. I also want to give you a little bit of space now to talk about is there anything that we missed in the conversation, you know, that we like to give an open floor. If there's anything that you still want to talk about that you think the listeners should really know about your work.
[00:31:44] Barthélémy Rochat: Maybe I could tell about something that we talked about innovation during this week. We talked about the importance of having a common language. So I'm not talking about English, but really to know what we are talking about. And when you say words like innovation, it's. It's very difficult to see what you mean.
And the danger is to have buzzwords that is that words that you need to use to be fashionable to make the marketing right, but that are empty behind it. That's a real risk. And we see that, I see that very often that you have these buzzwords that are going on and people need to use it. Otherwise they are old fashioned. I don't know. And what I started to work on, but together with other cities is to try to have an innovation framework. But there are tons of innovation frameworks. There are many of them. So what do you do when you have too many frameworks? You create a new one, but this one is a little different as it is a minimalist innovation frameworks. The idea is to give the tools to the people in administration to have the base for innovation. And again it's about being structured. It's about Methods, you have methods for innovation that are working and that are known. So you don't just need to pretend to do innovation, but you can learn this method and really to apply them first at a very simple level and to have just a few rules, a few methods that you need to learn. So it's still a learning process. And for the time being, this innovation framework is called minima and I'm trying to work on it, to develop it and also with other cities. So that doesn't matter where you work, in which field you work, you still need to be able to innovate. Because the meaning of innovation, for me, it's not like in the private sector, you don't need to invent something completely new already. When you do something differently for a better outcome. This is a new innovation and there are some method for that.
[00:34:09] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, that's really interesting. What do you think are the other buzzwords, the first ones that come to your mind?
[00:34:16] Barthélémy Rochat: Blockchain, Metaverse?
Yeah, there are, there are many.
Those are tools that can be useful, but you don't need to use them for everything. For every problem you meet. Very often you can use very simple tools. And yeah, sometimes the best way to digital is not always the best way. And sometimes the best way to improve, sometimes a difficult process is to get rid of the process, to do things differently or to remove the thing itself. So you need to be aware of that.
[00:35:02] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really good. Really interesting to get all of your thoughts on there. Now you know what time it is. I think it is time for our fun segment that we've chosen for you today. And I have chosen for you my favorite segment which is roll with the punches. So this is when you answer this or that questions with your first instinct and they're purposely hard for you to choose sometimes. So sometimes you can't have one without the other also.
[00:35:35] Barthélémy Rochat: So your choice is really unfair. I told you as a Swiss, you know, we are speaking slowly and we are slow and I like to think before answering.
[00:35:44] Tamlyn Shimizu: Not possible here. Not possible here. You just have to answer, you have to go. So you have to fight the Swiss instinct, I think. All right. Are you ready?
[00:35:53] Barthélémy Rochat: Ready.
[00:35:54] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay. Cycling or public transport?
[00:35:57] Barthélémy Rochat: Cycling.
[00:35:58] Tamlyn Shimizu: Lake Bil or Jura? Mountains.
[00:36:04] Barthélémy Rochat: Mountains.
[00:36:05] Tamlyn Shimizu: Mountains. Internet of Things or Internet of places?
[00:36:09] Barthélémy Rochat: Places.
[00:36:11] Tamlyn Shimizu: Open source solutions or proprietary software?
Open source Standardized frameworks or custom built approaches?
[00:36:20] Barthélémy Rochat: Standardized.
[00:36:22] Tamlyn Shimizu: Public private partnerships or government led innovation?
[00:36:27] Barthélémy Rochat: Public private academic people partnership.
[00:36:32] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. Incremental improvements or disruptive innovation?
[00:36:36] Barthélémy Rochat: Incremental improvement.
[00:36:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: Small city advantages or big city opportunities?
[00:36:43] Barthélémy Rochat: Small city advantages.
My mother tongue is French and German.
[00:36:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Very good, very good. How was it?
[00:36:55] Barthélémy Rochat: Thank you very much.
[00:36:57] Tamlyn Shimizu: You did, you did great. You, you answered with. No, you answered it very quick. Quickly with good answers for, for the segment. So now you get to explain a little bit about your answers. Did you choose anything that maybe surprises the audience.
[00:37:19] Barthélémy Rochat: About this quick question?
[00:37:20] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. About the segment. Yeah.
[00:37:23] Barthélémy Rochat: I don't know.
[00:37:24] Tamlyn Shimizu: Well, you change public private partnerships, for example.
Why did you change public private partnerships?
[00:37:32] Barthélémy Rochat: Why? I changed it because, yeah, this is the right way to do things if possible, when possible. It's not always possible, but when it happens, it's really something that move, accelerate things.
We should really not consider a city administration and the one who needs to decide who have the answers, but we need to co create things when it's possible and to make things happen together.
[00:37:58] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. And now it is the final question. It's a question we ask every single guest and it's to you, what is a smart city?
[00:38:08] Barthélémy Rochat: Okay, I've heard this question about 50 times and every time I was wondering what I would answer to it.
And there is a little problem for me with this question and the question problem is that do we really agree about, do we have a common language for what does mean smart?
Because smart means a little bit like intelligence, but in a bit sexy way, I guess in English that's the meaning of smart. So it's an intelligent city. And then what does means intelligence in general? It's the ability to understand, to learn, to adapt and to solve problems.
But we need to understand, have a common understanding of what it means for us. And there is another fun fact. So if we talk about intelligent city or intelligent people, there is a study that has shown that almost everyone think that they are smarter than the average person. And statistically this is impossible. So I think it's the same with cities. Every city hope or think that they are smarter than the average city. But at the end it's not true. It cannot be true. So I think that in practice, the best way for a city to become smart on a daily basis is as we said before, to break silos and to build bridges and bridges within the administration and between the different administration and building bridges with the policymakers, with the population, with the citizens, with the private and academic stakeholders.
So a smart city is a city that does the right things with the right people for the right outcomes at the right times. It's not always easy.
[00:40:13] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. I will just leave it at that because that was a perfect ending to the episode. So I just have to say thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate all your insights, getting to know how you think about these complicated problems and how you think about some of these terms. So thank you so much.
[00:40:29] Barthélémy Rochat: Thank you very much.
[00:40:30] Tamlyn Shimizu: And of course, thanks to all of our listeners for listening. And don't forget, you can always create a free. Free account on BABLE Smart Cities eu. You can find out more about projects, solutions and implementations. Thank you very much.
