Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Jeanne Tallon: Starting right away.
[00:00:03] Marko Teräs: Okay, cool.
[00:00:04] Jeanne Tallon: So welcome everyone, to this episode of Smart in the City. I'm Jeanne. I'm very happy to be your host today for this final episode of our Imagine 2025 series that we are actually recording on site in Tampere in Finland. This is the second day of the Imagine event today, and we will be diving into a European project that's aiming to bring urban participation into the digital age. The name of this project is Excite, and I have sitting with me two key voice behind the project. So I'm very happy to welcome Marco Teres, project manager for the Excite Project at the city of Tampere, Finland. So where we are today, as I mentioned. Welcome, Marco.
[00:00:45] Marko Teräs: Thanks. Nice to be here.
[00:00:47] Jeanne Tallon: And with him, Arno Vestrate. I hope I didn't butcher your name too much. Sorry about that.
[00:00:52] Arnaud Verstraete: Great job.
[00:00:54] Jeanne Tallon: Who is a project manager at oasc, Open and Agile, Smart Cities and Communities, and who's also leading the communication and dissemination package for the Excite Project. Welcome, Arnold.
[00:01:06] Arnaud Verstraete: Thank you.
[00:01:07] Jeanne Tallon: So, to get us warmed up a little bit before we dive into the main part of the interview, we always like to ask some fun questions. And the one that I have for you today is, if you had to describe the mission behind the Excite project with only three emojis, which one would you use and why?
So maybe, Marco, you want to start and then I know you can maybe build on his answer.
[00:01:32] Marko Teräs: Sure. The one that has the two fingers up and perhaps, I guess, well, the robot emoji makes sense, but with the. The shining glitter stuff after that.
[00:01:51] Arnaud Verstraete: For the party effect, perhaps.
[00:01:55] Jeanne Tallon: So do you agree with him, Arnold?
[00:01:57] Arnaud Verstraete: Yeah, it's a good way of looking at it. I was thinking of a heart, you know, because I really love what we are going to be able to give to people's lives.
Sometimes I think it's also the. I don't know if you can say this on this podcast, but there's the expression of surprise. Also the WTF emoji.
What are we really going to do all this in such a short time?
And then maybe the biceps, you know, when you think with the team.
Yeah, we're going to do it.
[00:02:37] Jeanne Tallon: Nice. That's why he's here, the communication guy.
Perfect. So now I want to dig in a little bit more and to learn about you to start with. And we will then dive into the project itself. But I would like to ask you first. So maybe starting with Arnaud, what is your background and how did you become involved with Excite at the start?
[00:03:01] Arnaud Verstraete: Well, I've had a bit more than 20 years of experience in the public sector.
The last 10 years I was a member of parliament, so I was in politics.
And before that I was an advisor to the minister.
And I felt it was time to get more into the action because politics is very nice, but you often stick to the words and it takes a lot of time to get to realizations. And so Excite is really bringing change, I hope in the nearby future to improve people's lives. And that's what really attracts me in this project.
[00:03:37] Jeanne Tallon: Very nice, very inspiring background. Thank you. And what about you, Marco?
[00:03:41] Marko Teräs: Well, I guess I started with arts and media roughly also 20 years ago, roughly the same age.
I was a developer first.
I did some mobile apps and some of the first social media platforms for different, I guess different customers.
In the end of the 2000, at some point I became interested in research and especially researching, studying digitalization.
So for example, I did my PhD in Australia where I studied the success factors of implementing technology in higher education, but also using virtual reality and serious games in hazardous environments training like people who work in the gas and chemical sector, using technologies or machines that if you use them wrong, you could die.
And so I guess I have a sort of a broad background in human computer interaction, social sciences. I ran a research group before this, three and a half years at the university in Tampere in sociology.
But when I met a person, one of the persons who started this, and then they were like, you would be a perfect match for this project, to manage it because of these different things that I've done in the past.
And here I am.
[00:05:15] Jeanne Tallon: Wow. Very, very interesting background. Very, very nice. Thank you very much. So then let's start with the big picture. Now let's talk about the project.
What is the vision and mission of the Excite project, Marco?
[00:05:30] Marko Teräs: Sure, and that's a really broad question actually, but I try to answer it in a succinct way.
I guess the idea behind is that with the emerging technology and the current technologies, how can we make cities.
[00:05:49] Arnaud Verstraete: Be.
[00:05:49] Marko Teräs: More for the citizens and how can we get their input for the city development?
And I guess we have, I would say, although we have like three areas where we're doing pilots in the project. It's Flanders area in Belgium and. And Rotterdam in Holland and Tampere. But I would say we have sort of two areas, which is urban development or city development, which is I guess more of the stuff that is done in Flanders and Rotterdam, but in Tambara it's more about cultural pilots. How can we make the city a Place where art is everywhere. An immersive art, like using ar, for example, or the artwork around the city, that you get more information and get more immersed in the artwork. So I guess these two things, urban development and also culture and well, we talk about tourism also, but yeah, to.
[00:06:55] Jeanne Tallon: Make it more accessible.
[00:06:56] Marko Teräs: Yes, yes. And interesting also like that. When you come to the city, how can you get more information and more interesting experiences on art?
[00:07:09] Jeanne Tallon: I know. Did he miss anything about the project?
[00:07:12] Arnaud Verstraete: No, he didn't. He's our project manager.
[00:07:15] Marko Teräs: Thanks, Arno.
[00:07:17] Jeanne Tallon: And so what is your role exactly within the project?
[00:07:22] Arnaud Verstraete: My role is I'm in charge of the communications package and the dissemination.
So an important aspect of this whole challenge is, as Marco said, we will have. Have the high ambition to improve the quality of people's life by making things more interactive, more democratic. They can more easily understand what the government is planning to change in their neighborhood, for example.
And of course, then at a certain point you have to involve them and you have to let them know that you have this intention. And so the communications package that I'm in charge of, one big challenge that we have is how are we going to reach out to the people, get them to understand what our ambition is and get them involved and help us co create. Because it's new, it hasn't been done before, and we want to do this with them for the first time. So there will be a lot of interactive reaching out in Tampere, in Rotterdam and in Flanders.
And yeah, I'm really looking forward to that.
[00:08:27] Jeanne Tallon: I can imagine. I understand completely with my communication background as well. Completely understand the importance of that.
All right, then let's talk about the Citiverse, because it is a new word, so to say. So how does the Excite Project define and approach the Citiverse? Is it augmented reality? Virtual reality, Digital twins? All of the above? What is it exactly?
[00:08:56] Marko Teräs: That's a good question. I would say all of the above.
And I guess if you ask that after two years that we still have with the project, then, then we would be more smart, like smarter with that answer. But yes, because the project is also defining what it is and not just only like on a conceptual level, but actually on a, on a, like a technological or how would I say, like a framework level.
What different things need to go together that something called Citiverse works. Like, we're. We're talking about a difficult word which not many of our partners can even pronounce. And I'm just trying it now just in live interoperability of different technologies and like how can we make things called digital Twins and local digital Twins, extended Reality or XR or ar? How can we make these things work? And also not only in these places where we do the pilots, but on an EU level, like in Europe, between each other. Because Excite is only one project.
There are three other projects which are funded for the same reason.
So this is the aim of all the projects, to define what actually is Citiverse.
[00:10:28] Arnaud Verstraete: I think it's a really fundamental question because it's really new and it's like we are trying to create a virtual world, the city of Tampere in 3D. In the digital version, that would be the local digital twin. But then the extra that we are trying to get on top is that it will be interactive and that immersive, that as a citizen you can go through this 3D model and you can interact with it. It could be I go to the Nokia arena with my daughter seeing concert and on my phone I can choose the way I zoom in on the artist's face.
This will be real technology that Nokia will be bringing in this project.
So that culture.
But in Flanders it could be that you will be able to see the government is going to change the layout of my street.
What will be the impact on traffic?
But I don't like that.
What can I do to bring that down, the noise levels down, the air quality up?
And then the magic would be that you can really test out things in this 3D model and see what will happen on all these aspects, air quality, noise levels, traffic levels and etc. So it's like we're taking all the technology that's been made in the last years and creating this extra layer where everything starts to interact and a person can go in it and work with it.
[00:12:09] Jeanne Tallon: It's very ambitious.
Who do you have on the task for that?
Who are the partners then involved in the projects to make that happen?
[00:12:18] Arnaud Verstraete: Well, we have good partners and it's true that this is a really big challenge. So we have Nokia already mentioned them and everybody knows them. Of course there's a whole list of technological partners. This future Insight from Holland, Segica and IMEC from Flanders. There's also academic partners, HO west from Belgium, there's mobility partners, TML and Telram and I think then of course there are the places, Tampere City, Rotterdam, Flanders.
And there's also OWASC where I'm working for, is a network organization that is looking at making through this interoperability and making sure that what we are creating with these great minds here can Afterwards also be used by other cities and implemented for their work and their citizens.
[00:13:18] Jeanne Tallon: And those places you mentioned, are those the places where the pallets will be implemented that you mentioned, Marco?
[00:13:28] Marko Teräs: Yes, and. But we can't say too much about some of the pilots yet because I guess they're sort of undefined. Still secret. It's a secret.
[00:13:39] Jeanne Tallon: First on spot in the city.
[00:13:41] Marko Teräs: Yeah, yeah.
But we have.
I. I can talk about the Tampere pilots because I know they will be in Tampere area. Like public art. Art on map stuff that Tambura Art Museum is doing. Then also museum, they're extending their Finnish Civil War Exhibition 1918 things that they've already done. And they. I guess they presented it here also on. On Imagine.
So yeah, they are on site.
Rotterdam is sort of extending some of the stuff they've done with Open Urban Platform and Flanders area.
They have their couple of different.
Would you call them city. Their cities, I guess, yes.
[00:14:32] Arnaud Verstraete: Yeah. At our level we call that cities. I know they're quite small, but there's two cities and the main thing there is they will test urban development. So the government public authority is saying we want to put a big building up here.
Of course there will be impacts on traffic and that was the example that I gave before.
People living around will be able to see what kind of traffic will this really be and what will be the impact on my street and how can I propose relevant solutions to make it better for me.
And yeah, I think there's really exciting ideas. Sorry for the world. It's so obvious.
I had to place it here.
[00:15:15] Marko Teräs: You had to do it.
[00:15:17] Arnaud Verstraete: One that I also liked, but maybe we can get into it later on is in Rotterdam where they are looking also at inclusiveness, getting the service.
Because digital services are often not open for all the public.
It's a well known fact that the elderly people who didn't grow up with all these technologies, they have a difficulty in Rotterdam. They will try out a system where instead of having to go to the city administration, you could go in this 3D version, the Citiverse, walk through the Citiverse to the City hall, go to the service that you need, but everything is online.
And that would be more intuitive to an elderly person than going to a website, finding the right categories, clicking on the right links. And so this is something that they will try out to make this completely new technology really accessible for more people.
[00:16:23] Jeanne Tallon: You anticipated one of my questions, actually. Sorry, that's perfect. Actually coming naturally in the conversation. But it is often a risk in this kind of digital Engagement projects when we have a huge digital gap in most cities here in Europe to make sure that we are not excluding some citizens. So great to hear that the project is already taking that into account as well.
[00:16:48] Arnaud Verstraete: It is a. It's a real part of our, our mission also.
[00:16:53] Marko Teräs: Yeah. And like we have ethics advisory board where we have seven members who are basically people who are researching technology or digitalization from ethics perspective or AI and privacy. And privacy also people who understand like procurement law in that area. So we have a group of people who are constantly saying to us, you should pay attention to these things.
[00:17:24] Jeanne Tallon: That's great.
Would you say that it makes. That's one of the things that makes the Excite project different from other smart city or digital.
Our digital EU projects could be.
[00:17:35] Marko Teräs: I don't know actually, I don't know if the other ones have an ethics.
[00:17:38] Arnaud Verstraete: Advisory board, but I think it exists.
What makes this project different, I think is the fact that it's so human centered.
In the past projects they had to be more technology centered because they still had to work out all these technologies.
And now I think we are coming at the level that we can start to build the last layer on the technology that makes it accessible to the big public.
And this is the, I think the difference between a lot of the other projects who stick more to the level of working with institutions, public authorities, but not so much involving the public. And now we will get to do that.
[00:18:25] Jeanne Tallon: That's great. I'm very excited to follow the progress on that.
[00:18:28] Arnaud Verstraete: She's also excited.
[00:18:33] Jeanne Tallon: And actually, what are the next steps? What should I look out for in terms of any upcoming events, milestones or opportunities?
Maybe also for cities or citizens to get involved. If anyone listening to this episode is interested.
[00:18:47] Arnaud Verstraete: Sure.
[00:18:48] Marko Teräs: So I guess the key activities that we've done currently are related to functional requirements and technical requirements of what we are actually doing in the project.
I've been really happy with some of the partners from the Flemish government, for example, doing a co design workshop with all the partners and the pilots, which gives us not only what the pilot should be about on many different levels, meaning like usability, user experience, but also that nice word interoperability.
But also everything in that feeds into the higher level things on the EU level. What is Citiverse, how should it be defined and what kinds of guidelines are there?
But to your question, what happens next? Something more interesting perhaps than frameworks.
I guess all the pilots are at the stage where they are looking at who are they working with?
Technologies, with the Tampere pilots. I know that Their vision is that everything is done by the end of 2026.
So 2025 you already have to do the sort of the early demos, I guess, and then prototyping and we want to be quite open with things and, and that's why we like post stuff on LinkedIn and on our website all the time. So people, you know, have the access to what's currently happening with all the different projects or the pilots. Yeah, we're still trying to define do we talk about pilots or use cases or whatever, but it doesn't matter in a sense.
But all of them are on the stage of, I guess, prototyping and the functional requirements. Do you want to add anything?
[00:21:01] Arnaud Verstraete: Yeah, I certainly want to add that one thing to look out for in the coming time is actually in two weeks the Tampere local media launch will happen.
And so then that means the local communications will start with LinkedIn or other social media, the website with a finished page and we will have these kind of local media launches in Rotterdam and Flanders as well.
And so that's where I hope that we start this conversation with the public outside. And it's true what Marco said during that time. We are going now in the phase of finishing up the exact definition of what it is that we are going to do in each of these pilot cities.
And then the next step will be building these models. But there we should have already the inputs from the public. So I hope the people who are listening will be watching our website, our LinkedIn and the local media to get involved and I hope they can also come interact and help us because I'm sure as you have this well informed public that they can also add something to our story.
[00:22:18] Jeanne Tallon: Definitely, and they should. And you actually already started interacting a little bit and presenting here at The Imagine the Citiverse event in Tampere. We are attending the 2025 edition right now. So what do you get out of the event and what is your feeling? So now we're already on day two.
So Marco, what are your thoughts there?
[00:22:41] Marko Teräs: Well, I guess when you have these kinds of projects it's not only about reaching out, you know, like on an international level, but it's also gathering people from your own area. Like I work for the city of Tampere and there's several interesting projects going on in AR and also developments in Digital Twins or like the City Digital Twin. So I've been trying to get people together and I guess this, this event has been good in that because I met also a lot of people I used to work with.
I'VE been to the sort of the, the, the. The. What do you call them? Like I've been to the University of Danbury but I also been to the University of Applied Sciences in Danbury and now with the Tampere City. So it's trying to gather also those people together because one of the. I guess the key things with Excite is to also promote the idea of.
And I'm not sure if this is really interesting as a theme or a concept for the listeners, but quadruple Helix model, which means like people from the academia, the society, the business industry and also like the, I guess the societal level.
So trying to get all these people together to think about Citiverse and, and I guess my background helps in that because I've been in those all, all of those areas. So I have connections there. So I've met people in those different areas in Imagine and then you know, saying that we're doing this thing now and, and yeah, I guess that's for me at least the biggest thing. I don't know. What do you think?
[00:24:36] Arnaud Verstraete: I liked it a lot until now.
What I love the most is you get really inspired when you look around.
I found already that our project Excite is quite ambitious. But then you see that other projects are really also taking it very far. Next level.
One thing I saw, for example is a startup, they want to make units that transport goods and persons in a completely automated way. Automated way. And they will try this out in Finland. I heard by 2031 and when I was walking around here and I see all these, there's a lot of Finnish companies, Dutch companies and companies from other countries worldwide.
And I'm thinking, wow, this is really going to be very interesting times. A lot of it's like you get in touch with the nearby future, you get a glimpse of what it's going to be like and I found it very nice.
[00:25:42] Jeanne Tallon: Foresights a window into the future. Yeah, it's very nice.
[00:25:46] Arnaud Verstraete: Exactly.
[00:25:47] Jeanne Tallon: Great.
So now we're coming to the end of the main interview part, but I want to take the just one moment to ask you if you have any extra points or topic that were not mentioned before and that you really think the audience should know or hear about.
[00:26:04] Marko Teräs: Or.
[00:26:05] Jeanne Tallon: No, this is not an opinion.
[00:26:07] Marko Teräs: You're the communication expert, so you should know this.
[00:26:09] Arnaud Verstraete: I know that's something amazing.
[00:26:14] Marko Teräs: Well, I guess with these kinds of projects it sometimes sounds too technical for some people and I personally want to like my background is in user experience design and human centered design.
And like we have for example, Harman from company Krill, he's an architect. We have him in the project. And he always, I guess with some of the people from the ethics advisory board, they always try to point out that it's about humans doing stuff for the human world. Of course we have the idea of sustainability with this because.
And I think it's sometimes lacking from the communication, but it is in there because with new technologies there's always the question, how much can the Earth take?
But I guess that's also what we want to understand while we're doing this, that, that we're not doing something which is detrimental, I guess, for Earth and for, also for the human world. I mean, like, my background is also in sociology. So when you invent new things, it always creates ripples between the human world, like, like, like between human interaction and stuff like that.
So I guess focusing on that, and I guess that's my, my research background, which is talking about that, that we really want to understand also what actually happens if these technologies come into play in, in cities and, and not only like that, okay, it's a nice, nice idea to use such technologies, but to understand that what actually happens in human interaction with the cities and you know, almost like on a democratic level too.
So I guess that's at least to me, what I want to keep in mind all the time, that it's not only about that nice word of interoperability and technology, but also what does it mean in the human interaction world.
[00:28:35] Jeanne Tallon: Yeah, that's a very interesting and important perspective that I think you bring. So thank you very much.
[00:28:42] Marko Teräs: No worries.
[00:28:43] Jeanne Tallon: Anything from your end, Arnault?
[00:28:45] Arnaud Verstraete: Well, I think he said it very well. It's what smart cities are about, I guess.
You have to make sure that you use a technology to improve people's quality of life.
You have to set the boundaries to make sure it's not detrimental in many regards, environmental privacy questions, things like that. And yeah, it's great to have a chance at making this really happen in the coming two years. So I'm sure you will hear from us in the nearby future. I hope.
[00:29:19] Jeanne Tallon: Looking forward to it.
[00:29:19] Arnaud Verstraete: Show some real results.
[00:29:22] Jeanne Tallon: Great. Looking forward to it.
[00:29:24] Arnaud Verstraete: Thank you.
[00:29:25] Jeanne Tallon: Then we are now coming to a fun part of our episode, which is our recurring podcast segment, and the one that I chose for you today is called Flip the Script.
So in this activity, I will ask you to ask each other a question and I will just sit back and enjoy and listen to you.
So maybe, Marco, you have a question for Arnold to start with.
[00:29:49] Marko Teräs: So how do you think your Background in politics will fuse into the Exide stuff.
[00:29:58] Arnaud Verstraete: It's already all over.
[00:30:01] Marko Teräs: It's quite interesting.
We didn't know before the project and I went to see the partners in Brussels and in Rotterdam and we went out for dinner and talked. And I was amazed that he used to be in local politics and now responsible of the communication. But just thinking like, what can you learn from your background for ex side, I guess.
[00:30:29] Arnaud Verstraete: Yeah, for me there's many things. One is it's all about people.
And this is true for politics and it's also true for this project.
You want to improve the quality of people's life.
And that should be true for the. For the both domains.
And then of course, in politics, communication is predominant. It's really very important and you really have to think about how can I connect with the hearts and minds of the people, what is important for them?
How should I translate my message so that it's easy to understand? And all these kind of things are very relevant, I think to the Excite communications too.
So that would be my official answer.
[00:31:19] Jeanne Tallon: Are you satisfied?
[00:31:20] Marko Teräs: Yeah, I'm very satisfied.
It's cool.
[00:31:23] Jeanne Tallon: And you can get revenge now. I know. And ask your questions.
[00:31:27] Arnaud Verstraete: How tricky would I make this one?
No, no. I want to ask Marco, what is the thing up until now that you like the most about this Excite project? And this can be inside the project or all around it.
Go ahead. What did you like most until now?
[00:31:46] Marko Teräs: Well, I guess working with people.
I think this is a really sort of.
It's a dull answer because before this I worked in research, which is often quite a lot that researchers do their own stuff, like in their own little silos. Of course they communicate through publications and stuff. But we had the first face to face consortium project meeting on Monday because I knew that some of the partners are coming to imagine because I wasn't the one initiating the project. So I realized that this would be a nice moment for everyone to meet each other. Because people, you know, when you start a project like this, it's often that the people who start it, it's not the same who actually do it and continue with that.
So getting quite many partners, I guess big part of the partners in Tambura and working together.
We had like a four hour or five hour working meeting on Monday, which sounds like awful and everyone is sort of dying in delayed two hours. But it wasn't like that. I thought it would be more like that people are really like in a cold. Sorry. In a coma after those hours. But. But I was amazed, like we have a nice balance of fun and really like to the point kind of people, which is, I guess it's rare you don't find that in all the projects. So that's what I like. And people have been really supportive because I came into the project two months ago when the project was already ongoing and people have been really helpful and patient with me because it's a big project and I'm trying to learn everything about it. So yeah, that's my answer.
[00:33:47] Arnaud Verstraete: I guess I can tell you that it's true and it's also the merit of Marco that it's not the only project that I'm involved in. But it's true that there's a very good dynamic in the team and it's not easy because most of the time in these European projects, you, you are international.
So the. Everybody is in a different country and you meet each other online most of the time.
And Marco's really, really made it an important point to really physically meet up and, and get together, work a lot, work hard, but also have good fun sometimes.
[00:34:23] Marko Teräs: Yeah, we had a sauna evening also.
[00:34:26] Arnaud Verstraete: And the total Finnish experience.
[00:34:28] Jeanne Tallon: Wow.
[00:34:28] Marko Teräs: Yeah, that was nice. Yeah, people liked it.
[00:34:31] Arnaud Verstraete: Very good.
[00:34:32] Jeanne Tallon: Now I'm jealous. I want to be part of the project too.
[00:34:35] Marko Teräs: You were invited, I guess.
[00:34:38] Jeanne Tallon: Perfect. Then we'll discuss afterwards.
[00:34:40] Arnaud Verstraete: Okay, cool. It's not too late. People can join in later.
[00:34:44] Jeanne Tallon: I hardly hear that audience. Yeah, good to know. Thank you very much. Now I would like to come to the very last question and it's a recurring question that we ask every one of our guests here on Smart in the City. And you actually already anticipated that question too, Arno. And that question is to you, what is a Smart city?
You already touched on that a little bit, but do you want to expand?
[00:35:11] Arnaud Verstraete: Well, I think the essence is this, that you use all your technology to make the quality of the people's life better. And it's of course easily said, is not so easy to do it.
For example, people in the Nokia Arena, I gave that example that people will be able to choose themselves what the 360 degree cameras will be looking at in an arena afterwards. They will even make this available to people outside. So you're not attending the concert, but you can go online and still get a feeling for that.
So that's great now, but then afterwards you get the question, yeah, but do people in that concert all want to be filmed?
Probably not. So there's a privacy issue. How are we going to arrange this? And so every time you make progress in a Smart City solution. You get new questions and new problems, but that should never be a reason to stop. You just have to think of new solutions and the total end should be always better. Of course.
[00:36:16] Jeanne Tallon: It's a never ending story.
[00:36:17] Marko Teräs: Yeah, lovely.
[00:36:18] Arnaud Verstraete: I love this.
[00:36:19] Marko Teräs: We could end that song.
[00:36:24] Jeanne Tallon: Then. Marco, I want to ask you the same question. To you, what is a smart city?
[00:36:32] Marko Teräs: I think it's about that when you see things that you want to improve in the city or experience in a different way, you have the opportunity to influence that.
When you walk in the physical city, like you have your buildings and stuff, you can't just like stop and shout.
That's also a song, I guess that, that this should be improved but like there is now, I guess a connection to something where you could do that.
And, and I think that's a smart city. It's not about just sensors, about the traffic and which we've had for a while already, but it's about the people who live in the city affecting what's happening next. I would say. Yeah, having the opportunity, an easy opportunity. Because if you, if you make it really difficult like some apps are, people won't do that and they get frustrated. So we need to also ensure that it's easy to do. Like I've talked about, how can we get people back to the city? Like with Thunder Case, with cultural things and art, it should be as easy as, you know, and fun as, you know, playing Pokemon Go or, or, or stuff like that, or sending a Snapchat message.
So how can we do this in that way? I think that's the question of the smart city. Really, really.
[00:38:14] Jeanne Tallon: Keeping the citizen in mind.
[00:38:16] Marko Teräs: Yes.
[00:38:17] Jeanne Tallon: Yeah, all the steps.
Great. Thank you very much for your answers.
And that's all I've got actually. We're coming to the end of this lovely episode. Thank you very much for joining me today.
[00:38:30] Arnaud Verstraete: Thank you too. Thank you for having us.
[00:38:31] Jeanne Tallon: Yeah, my pleasure. Absolutely. And I would also like to thank the Imagine event and our host city of Tampere in Finland to have welcomed us and to have. And without them we wouldn't have had the opportunity to record this podcast episode. So a big shout out to them as well and to all of our listeners. Don't forget, you can always create a free account on BABLE Smart Citiesto find more about smart city projects such as Excite, also solutions and implementations. And if you want to follow the Excite project even more closely, as mentioned, you can follow them also on LinkedIn and on their website. So yes, thank you very much.
[00:39:12] Arnaud Verstraete: Thank you, thank you.
[00:39:14] Jeanne Tallon: And that's a wrap.
