Brussels Smart City & Participation

A Smart City is a city that uses smart, data and technology-based solutions to improve the quality of life for its residents. To achieve this goal, we need to involve citizens, the end users, in the development of these new solutions.

This is exactly what this citizen participation platform is all about, enabling citizens to propose ideas, vote on and interact with the participatory projects set up by Brussels public actors.

On the Brussels Smart City website, you will find a lot of information about the Smart City in general and the Brussels Smart City in particular

This platform was set up in 2020 by the BRIC during the "Brussels hacks the crisis" project, which enabled citizens to take part in the design and definition of the functionalities of future "smart" services to help the people of Brussels in their life during and after the COVID-19 crisis. This platform operates using software developed by Go Vocal, a Brussels-based start-up specialising in citizen participation.

Two Brussels municipalities test the Smart City participation platform

Following a call for projects from the Brussels municipal administrations, the BRIC made its Smart City participation platform available to the municipalities of Jette and Saint-Gilles free of charge so that they could test this digital participation tool.

The municipality of Jette is drawing up a Climate Plan entitled "Jette in sustainable and inclusive transition" which will set strategic objectives for 2030. This action plan will be co-constructed with the administration, local actors and the population through a large-scale citizen participation process. Providing for a dynamic, interactive and online participation tool is part of the modernisation that the municipality wishes to bring to the Climate Plan. This platform will complement the traditional face-to-face participation methods; the two tools will co-exist and be used in a complementary manner. This will avoid excluding people who are not comfortable with the Smart City concept, while allowing a part of the population that is not easily mobilized in person to present their proposals.

The Commune of Saint-Gilles has made citizen participation a strong focus of its 2018-2024 mandate. The first step was to establish a permanent Citizens' Council, which was set up in November 2020, allowing 35 Saint-Gilles residents, selected by lot, to be involved in the success of collective projects. As part of the drafting of its climate plan, Saint-Gilles has been asked to set up a participatory process. This platform should enable them to extend the process to a wider and sometimes less visible audience, such as young people. The citizens' proposals collected on the platform will be integrated into the climate plan and may be the subject of future projects via regional or municipal budgets.

There are currently many public participation initiatives in the Brussels-Capital Region (the Parliament for example). The aim here is simply to make the tool available and to allow local authorities in Brussels to test it for specific and/or smaller-scale projects.