Digital Cities vs Smart Cities: The Revolution You Haven't Heard About

Take a look into the world of smart cities with three pioneering leaders who are transforming how we think about urban innovation. Host Tim Papandreou explores why "smart cities" might be the wrong term altogether, and what's really happening behind the scenes of urban digital transformation.

From using connected vehicle data to protect schoolchildren in Lyon to revolutionising freight logistics in Paris, discover how cities are leveraging data in unexpected ways. Industry leaders Marco Laucelli, Thibault Castagne, and David Fidalgo share candid insights about the challenges of innovation in government, the future of urban mobility, and why some cities actively resist crucial data insights.

This episode reveals the hidden complexities of urban digital transformation and offers a realistic view of how cities are evolving in the digital age. Perfect for city planners, tech entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in the future of our cities.

This podcast is powered by Y-Mobility.

Transcript

Tim Papandreou: 0:13

Good morning, everybody. Good afternoon, good evening. Where we are in the world. Here we are again with another conversations in the park. Episode This time, we're talking about data, smart cities and mobility, and I'm so glad we've got some super duper smart people who are going to give us some great overviews of what's happening in the world around this space. We have David, Marco, and Thibault Welcome gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

Unknown: 0:40

Thank you, Tim, thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Brilliant. Brilliant.

Tim Papandreou: 0:44

Yeah. Well, hope you're all well. I just survived the hurricane. I'm in Miami Beach, but everything's all well. So hope, wherever you are in your world, things are things are great. Let's dive into this topic, because there's a lot to talk about, and I want to hear from you all, so it's gonna be very exciting. So before we go deep, deep in the topic, I'd love to hear from Marco and Tabo. Everyone knows David's story, but David, we could do a little bit, but Marco and tevaux love to hear from you first on a little bit about yourself and how you got into this crazy world of data mobility and smart cities, because everyone's journey is unique. So Marco, why don't we start with you? Okay,

Marco Laucelli: 1:25

thank you, Tim, so just a few words about myself. I'm currently the founder and the CEO of Galeo is a Spanish based company working on the data space and the digitalization space, and particularly on working on this is digital asset digitalization, meaning everything physical, getting digital capabilities and connecting those capabilities to other assets to provide services that involve physical assets. Physical assets, okay, so in my past, I was working in IBM for 10 years in the past, the first time I heard about Smart City competence was actually there. I think it was in 2010 when IBM invented a very visionary lemma that was the smart planet. The smart planet vision behave that had different flavors for different sectors. So particular aspect of this smart plans vision, and one of them, of course, was smart See, included Smart TV, SMART Board, smart iPhone, everything. So at that time, it was the first time I heard about the smart city concept. From there I was more or less involved in in this, I don't know how to call it, this trend, this idea, this whatever it is,

Tim Papandreou: 2:56

excellent, excellent, great, great background to bow over to you. How did you I actually know how to book this space I want him to share.

Thibault Castagne: 3:06

Yeah. So I'm Thibault, and I'm the CEO co founder of Villanova. For the one that don't know us, we are mobility intelligence platform. So in a nutshell, we make it easy, basically, for cities, infrastructure managers and fits to access mobility insights. So we combine aggregate and make it easy to visualize and make it actionable to visualize mobility data, whether it's pedestrian, cycling, traffic, logistic flows, real time and historical. So use mainly, actually for planning, but also for operational management. How did I come into that world? So really, by chance, and Steve Jobs was saying, like, you connect the dots once you're there. And for me, it was really that, as many French people like I have engineering and mathematical background, so I studied mathematical finance and got into the data science world for investment banking first, and then worked into investment funds investing in renewable energy at the time of 2015 from that, decided that I was kind of tired of the investment world and created my first company, Spark horizon. And this is actually when we met Tim, between my transitions in Spark horizon and Genova, where he was an advertising sponsored charging infrastructure company, that we were probably a bit early for the time, but we had a good ride for two years. And you know from that in my knowledge about mobility, etc, and great, you know, great advisors and mentors, like when, when we met team bike in example, once I created the, you know, Vince as a 19,

Tim Papandreou: 4:51

yeah, well, by the way, that was an amazing time where a lot of things were happening. We thought that everybody had self driving in two years. So there's a lot of lot of things happening, but it. Is also an amazing place, like, if you ever want to do any founding work or any advising work, Exxon Provence is probably the best place in the world to do that. So that was a very good so kudos to La com for really incubating that kind of ideation. I don't want to leave David out, because David has an amazing story as well. So David shares. How did you get in this space? Because you've had a you've got incredible, incredible career in this space.

David Fidalgo: 5:23

Well, it's all it started with. Now we worked with four, I think basically when we're doing the electrification strategy, and basically one of the things that we're starting to figure out is basically the only way to actually make money with electric cars. At the beginning, to get mass introduction, was trying to create some kind of car sharing, by sharing stuff. And I, actually, I was being advising in mobility since 2015 t1 I meet as well. But he was the previous one and in some other conference as well.

Tim Papandreou: 5:55

Conferences people, that's where you meet everybody. This is where we go.

David Fidalgo: 6:00

He was afraid the charging company, and then he was transitioning as well, like when they when the next improvements basically

Thibault Castagne: 6:09

agree with you. It takes longer than you expect that to create companies. We have to meet each other a lot, you know,

David Fidalgo: 6:22

as well. Really good place, basically, to do innovation. I used to have a team in nice basically, in antives. It is another nice place to do innovation. And basically, yes, i Yes, creating one mobility and actually creating conversations in the park, just to allow this conversation with people for long, long time. Because basically, I believe that things don't happen in a short time. Is taking a long time to humans change perception of the what is the norm, right? So basically, there's we're creating this forum to discuss with interesting people, and so also how the transformation is going, and how we're going as well. And I think that's a little bit the background that, that that I bring here, yes, always trying to create ecosystems, right? Of people talking Well,

Tim Papandreou: 7:11

I like that. And, you know, it's also an important opportunity for us to really discuss some things in detail, beyond the sound bites and beyond the LinkedIn posts, where everything's amazing. You know, we need to actually go a little bit deeper sometimes. Say, you know, what's not working, what's working. So, you know, smart cities have been around for a while, right? We hear about a lot. The thing I used to say all the time, you know, when I worked for the city of San Francisco, and I think when we first met, to Bo as well, and David, I was like, you know, no one wants to be a dumb city, right? So it's like this whole thing, like, smart cities want to be smart, this smart that, and Marco saying a smart airport, smart ports, smart this smart that no one wants to be dumb, anything. But there's a big leap to get from where you are today to be truly a smart city. And it means so many things to so many different people. I'd love to hear each of you just express what is your understanding or definition of what is an actual smart city, and what are the pieces of a smart city that, from today's point of view, are the most relevant? You know, we hear a lot about the different pieces, and they've changed a lot of a time. It used to be the smart city was really about IoT, but now it's about a lot of other things as well. So what are the what are your definitions of a smart city? And would love to hear that. So maybe we started to bow, because you're so in the data of it all with with the mobility side. What? What is a smart city in your in your definition?

Thibault Castagne: 8:37

So I think it's the sort of the, I would say, the digitalization of the operational run and the planning of the city, but also the services to citizens. So I think it has three angles, in my view. You know, you could, you know, how do you better plan cities using data and digital tools? How do you better operate your city on a on a management perspective, whether it's waste management or curb Management, Safety, etc, etc, from a real time perspective, and and services to citizens. You know, how do you make basically, services more accessible, digitally, etc, especially at the time where you know, most of the developed countries have big deficit, and probably we're gonna, you know, have to cut some, you know, some public sector people, let's say, or to reduce the so you're gonna have to digitize a lot of these services, you know, in that sense, in quality as smart cities. But it has like, three, the way I see it is also like it has three, three things into into smart city. You see the data. The data is a big part and the connectivity of cities in general, whether it's IoT, as you mentioned, team, or the mobility or the everything that moves into the city, there is the policy. And how do you create actually informed policy based on the data? Up and the governance. So how do you actually govern a city, basically based on, you know, well, source policy that actually come from the data and the right feedback loop from these policies also better inform with data in terms, I

Tim Papandreou: 10:14

love that, love that Marco, what's your what's your definition and idea about smart cities?

Marco Laucelli: 10:19

I mostly agree what the one is saying. Actually, I will prefer to talk about the digital city more than the smart city, because, as you said, nobody wants to be a brown city. But the fact is, the reality is that we cities are becoming digital. Being smart or not is an aspiration. And the concept of Smart City, for me, is just in a general perspective, is the inspiration that all those digital capabilities will make us, as you know, able to actually do smart planning, smart service management, smart resource management, but the reality that that manager will be digital, so the bills map or not, is something that is an opportunity, but it's the reality that it will actually become digital. And in fact, it's exactly the in the same line of what he was saying is it's a combination of the data that is produced by the digital capability of the individual assets that more and more with time, are getting those digital capabilities, those collectivity capabilities, and being cars, being buildings, being roads, being people. So there is an emerging behavior that is actually the service that we can build using those digital capability combining the different assets. And this is the digitalization of the activity of the city. And again, being smart is an aspiration, and and that aspiration should be, in my opinion, mostly focused on on something that also that was also mentioned, that is how we can govern this interaction between different digital things, as well as we have been governing digital services, the pure digital space, digital services like media, banking, other areas where no physical assistance involved. So at the end, is better thinking about the digitalization of the city and the opportunity that with the proper governance and the proper analytical capability, we can make those services that are built on those interactions will be beneficial and then smart. Yeah,

Tim Papandreou: 12:38

no, I really like that. So there's a lot of moving parts. I think it's requires a lot of coordination.

Marco Laucelli: 12:44

And actually it's an imagined behavior. It's something that you cannot, in my opinion, if they allow me, that's the second is difference between what was happening at the beginning of the concept is that there was that beginning we were thinking about more top down approach, how we can collect all the data, how can we operate all this complexity from a top approach? And I think that we have learned that is more how we can govern these emerging behaviors that are appearing because two elements of the of the city get that together, get together in order to be the service. So it's more looking at these emergent things, more than a top down approach that's really well said, you know,

Tim Papandreou: 13:33

the understanding the systems. And David, I want to, I want to get your opinion, because, you know, you do a lot of work in this space. What is the biggest thing that we're challenged with when we're trying to do is because even if we go from, you know, our world of mobility, there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of like, systems designs, there's a lot of integration that's needed, and that requires skill sets. And it's something that I think David talks about a lot, not sometimes, not in a positive way, but of how it's very difficult to have people to think broader than just this particular myopic piece in a systems thinking approach, like, how do you how do you work with your clients? How do you work with explaining to people what what are the key piece that I need to make this all work together, because it's a lot of moving parts that some people just really struggle with. So how do you do it from the company perspective and from a thought leader perspective?

David Fidalgo: 14:27

I think team is a good question, and I want to link it with what Marco and Tybalt were saying. How you make a smart or digital city? There's a key thing that we need to understand as well, that is the strategy of basic smart government, is what I call that right, is how we actually because I think, as well, there's a challenge as well, how you actually doing your strategy to actually ensure that your city is actually becoming a smart mind, and how you're going to do actionable plans and actual strategy of how you want to implement your technology be. Basically, and which technology you put right to ensuring that you have a roadmap, that it can be actually developing and integrated it in the ecosystem of the city, right? That, I think is part of the for me, the part of being smart is a lot of technologies here that is that that agree on that, but it's this how you actually do an actionable planning, strategic action plan, to transform your city, how you can ensuring that that transformable plan allowed integration basically and actually capture the system requirements of your citizens, right? That is the ones that actually need to be implemented that because, I think, as well, and in my conversations, I have not much, but a few with tibu, I was always asking, How is actually the, you know, the cities react to that, right? Because I think that's part of that particular enabler to bring the technology into place. You need to have that particular understanding. How is this in this strategy team? Basically, when you involve the part, okay, the customer feedback, that is the citizens as well, and they understand the requirements that you have in your city, and with these requirements that you have in your city, you can understand how is the roadmap to have a more open and integratable solution for the city right, in which you can allow different multiple companies to have an environment when they can share information and creating insights? That I think is, I think, I think, for my understanding, is one of the biggest challenge, right? Because a lot of people have a lot of information in the city, I know that tibu is trying to help to solve that problem, right?

Thibault Castagne: 16:30

I would say that. I would say that the skill set is probably, like, I wouldn't say it's the biggest challenges in the big because, like, I'm gonna say it blankly, like I was surprised and happily surprised by the level of knowledge and skills of public cities.

Tim Papandreou: 16:46

Oh, yeah, people, some of the smartest people, and

Thibault Castagne: 16:51

super committed and super committed, super committed. They're passionate, but the problem is that they work with their hands tight, because one of the first thing is the difficulty of working with the public sector, because of procurement, because of legislation, etc, make their jobs super frustrating, and they can only, basically, like, leverage 10% of what they could do, as opposed to, You know, let alone just maintain 50% you know. But you know, procurement and general, like public private partnership, is so hard because of legislation and procurement laws, etc, that I think is the biggest challenge towards actually bringing this smart digital, yeah.

Tim Papandreou: 17:35

I mean, I think that's, that's a very good point. Marco, did you want to add some

Marco Laucelli: 17:39

more to that? Just wanted to add that it's also, definitely skill capabilities and and trained professional with the very mixture of experience are required and so difficult to get. But from another point of view, city planners or city governments, in some way they have been doing. A lot of the perspective has been very focused on, let me say, on the brick and mortar part of the city, on the other stage, and most, more and more the behavior of the city is in a soft part in this, in this digital part that is more is liquid, is changing very quickly. Is not, as you know, fixed as the brick and mortar part of the city. So that is a very extreme challenge for them, because they are shortening the time of change. The scale of change is completely different from that of the traditional planning of the city. And by the way, even if the city planning have been looking at the brick and mortar the building and the streets, etc, the services of the city have been, always have been, always been, sorry, an emerging behavior, because it was the people that there was using the buildings, using the stage that actually made the services, and this is much more difficult and much more on the out of control of the planet than the infrastructure side. So that that's for me, it's an important challenge. The scale, the time scale, is changing of planning, because everything is getting more and more easy to change, easy to try and to change, because becoming digital, with music, with whatever you know that they've been digitized.

Tim Papandreou: 19:30

Yeah, no, that's a really good point, that the fact that there's so much more information coming to cities now, and you know, I want to do a shout out to all the city planners, engineers and designers that there. We know we see you. We're really appreciative all the work that you do. As Thibault was saying, we know how hard the situation. I know personally, how hard it was, trust me, it was like 90% of my job was just dealing with all the frustration of all the red tape. But once you do go through the red tape and you can actually design new systems, you can do amazing things quickly, really quickly as well. Well. So to go, you know, you have a lot of city clients, all three of you do. What are some of the things that are exciting that you can actually do with this data once you actually get it into the hands of the city, once they get to see what's happening around them? Give some examples of some, let's just call it smart mobility initiatives that you've seen that I think are really promising in this space,

Thibault Castagne: 20:27

yeah. So I guess a lot a lot of us, a lot of people listening, probably knows Novia Nova for the regulation of shared mobility, which essentially is using geofencing technology and telematics data and basically regulating the use of public space for E scooters and E bikes from shared e scooters and shared e bikes. Since then, we've obviously expanded a lot the platform and the use cases that we're handling and recovering for cities, but also for regional authorities and national authorities. One that we're actually working on now with the city of Lyon is around division Zero program. We're also doing this with Transport for London, but with the Lyon, which is, like you know, second largest city in France, we actually leveraging connected vehicle data to map risky hot spots next to schools using braking and speeding information. And especially, you know, like no mobility patterns have changed a lot. You know, with also with ways and other navigation system, you know, some certain schools can have a lot of traffic. And you know, even, like, a lot of heavy duty trucks, heavy duty vehicles, traffic, etc. So we really doing, like a school zone sort of risk mapping at the moment, and that, I think, a very good use of, you know, how do you can, you know, leverage connected vehicle data and near misses to actually protect children and protect basically vulnerable road users in these areas. Another work that we're doing is on freight. Freight is one of the biggest unknown for municipalities. They really have no idea about the actual public space use of freight and traffic congestion that is triggered by freight. So now we are, you know, partnering with a lot of telematics providers that actually where we collect and aggregate this data from trucks and vans in cities, and we are able to not only actually have a good information about curb use, so generally, like, you know, of a subscribe curb and and double parking on cycling lands, for instance, etc, etc. But also having an overall, more macro, original destination and traffic flows of freight, basically, and you know, for instance, working with the City of Paris, and that, you know, they have a big ambition about moving, you know, freight to the Seine, so the river, so basically moving a lot of the parcels delivery to the river, etc, etc, and also using Iceman delivery. So thanks to this kind of data, you can, you know, work on the actual planning of how you design, like, a more sustainable freight system for cities, especially European cities that have a very tight, let's say, like your victory on urban constructor,

Tim Papandreou: 23:38

I love that. Love it. Marco, what are some examples that you're really excited about that you've been working on or helping your clients see in this world of data? Yeah, well, just to

Marco Laucelli: 23:49

mention an example that where this kind of emerging behavior appear, I like to share what we are doing with the gas stations in Spain, we are helping the oil and gas company digitalizing gas station, meaning giving, let's say, an access point to all the services a gas station may provide through a digital interface, and that will be obviously used by an application from a user. But the interesting point that is that they are planning to provide those service directly to vehicles, so that they are discussing with the fleet manager and from Van manufacturer, in order to be able to have a conversation directly between the vehicle and the gas station for what to collect data that could be helpful for the fleet manager to suggest better routes to the driver to for safety reasons, for just for commercial relationship, or for just subscriptions to the some specific services so that the van by a. As an asset or as a tool. Be in a business process if you want, is interacting with the other tool, that is the gas station that provides services for the for the van. So this is at the end, is something that seems to be just a one to one relationship between the van or the fleet and the and the gas station. But it's because more and more complex, because as you add other pieces to this interaction, you may think about modular mobility, so change in mobility mode based on what the association may work as a parking lot, for example, or things like that. So the interaction between two assets, a mobile asset like a truck, and a physical asset like the gas station is providing this complex new behavior and based on the digital connectivity within the short term. So this is something that we're working on in in Spain and and is, you know, you just discovered the new opportunities and the new services and the new, as I said, opportunities to improve processes as you go through the way, because you don't expect well, you find new opportunities for improvement as you go in the project that just you know start with the idea of having this conversation between the van and the gas station and what happens after The conversation is something that we have just discovered.

Tim Papandreou: 26:22

Yeah, I really like that. You know? I want to so there's a lot of data out there that we're using and finding. There's a lot of data that's not traditionally in the city or mobility space that's now being leveraged to create more awareness, does it? David, I want to ask you this question, does, is the data coming from places that is the client asking for this data analysis and data management, or is this something that your you and your companies and your network trying to educate the the client that these are available? What's where is the demand and supply for all this new data really coming from what's the, what's the directionality that we're seeing?

David Fidalgo: 27:03

I mean, so basically, one of the things were based on our experience. Basically, we started, I mean, as you Timo and Marco mentioned, in a sector that we're starting to getting quite a lot into it, that is the freight or commercial vehicles, right? Commercial Vehicles, there's, I think it's one of the biggest opportunities in data, because during our learning as well, it was that the B to C basically, that is the common automotive industry. They're kind of like educating in data, and the customer don't need that much data, right? Maybe the cities, no data, or the cars, but in the B to B markets, basically they're showing their requirements are completely different. They're looking about basic efficiency on the route and that require data positioning. It requires as well, more digitalization of the assets inside of the vehicle, that require a much more structured way of sharing data and a more structure, detail backing as well, because they need information real time, dates as well. In the car, you really don't need information on real time, right? As a customer, quality is a luxury, but you don't need it really, right? It's another argument of that. But I think that is a lot of is the problem in that particular sector is you need to do a lot of education, right? We work with a lot of companies in the US, for example, companies in Europe, there's different level of education on that, but it's a sector that is not being usually digitalized from the car companies, right? And they need some education as well. And Amazon help a lot as well to the operators. That is, the ones that actually are buying all these fleets, basically to speed up on that particular understanding of understanding the data layers that they have and how you can get information to be more efficient, right? Because actually this Amazon is starting with this policy that the what you call it, the two clicks at an hour. No that you could do two clicks in an hour. You need to have your packets in your house, right? And that particular philosophy strategy of Amazon pulls a lot of operators, and I mean the biggest procurement of fleets as well, include the governments, the post office, everybody else to try to start understanding and how they can get in this data much better. The problem is the challenges as well. And Marco and TiVo probably know this is the structure of the data as well, right? Because the telematic units that these people have, if they have basically, they're not, actually, they're all ones. They don't have a really good data structure of tweets, the cloud environments, and maybe actually not as lean as it should be as well the APIs, they're not really well developed. I'm just planning to somebody else for a commercial vehicle operator, or more a commercial vehicle manufacturer or assembly, for example, because the US is different than Europe, that you can actually assembly for commercial vehicles, APIs and cloud infrastructure events. Driven is need a little bit of education as well, right? Cities as well. For example, our experiences with the US. There's some cities that I need, they want to do in it. But then, when you started to talk about how the utilizer the systems to control, for example, drivers, the techographers, the all these things, they're a little bit far out in terms of updating those systems as well be the Italian eyes. So I think there's a learning process that you need to go there's a lot of willing to do, right, but there's a lot of learning that I need to do to understanding how we can have a more similar transition in the B to B markets. And for me, I'm more referring of transportation, freight, short term transformation as moderate transportation freight in cities to be more efficient, and then to be as well, more data

Marco Laucelli: 30:50

driven, something to do. What I'm saying is it's very important, whether it was, for me, is very important, distinguishing consumer goods from commercial vehicles, for example, because consumer good is just a good commercial vehicle are tools within a business process, or a service or something that needs, you know, it's is complex. Could be improved, etc, so I start thinking about a commercial one as a tool within a business process, you will clearly identify the difference, or leveraging the information, or leveraging this capability compared to a good that could be a personal car that you want to enjoy a driver for for your personal needs. So this is very important, and I think that will be the focus of the division itself. You know, just getting data, you know, just is how those data will be enabling you to improve your service that you provide into the person. Whatever could be a commercial social service, whatever. So it's, you know, you can look at the improvement, improving the experience of a consumer good probably has a completely different approach. Yeah, no,

Tim Papandreou: 32:11

I like that. You know. I think adding to what you were just saying, Marco and David, that was a really good overview of the way that a lot of agencies let's just the different end clients want to do these things. There's a real desire to do these things. And you know, I'm going to push this question over to you too, Bo, because you're really at the front line of a lot of these discussions. Walk us through, how do we go from the evolution of, we really want this. We love what you're doing at via Nova, but we just don't know how to start like, how do we actually figure this out? What walk us through? Like, what is the customer journey exercise, for example? Like, from the from the area of interest to we're now utilizing data to make decisions, because I will tell you this, and we're gonna we always have some spicy comments here, so it's okay to get spiciness. But sometimes cities actually don't want this information because it makes it very transparent, and now you actually have to act on something rather than just talk about it, right? So how do you how do you both educate and convince and sway that this is actually important to use and the information is going to be very helpful? I'm sure you've dealt with this many times, so I'd love to hear some of the examples that you have. Yeah, I mean, to the part

Thibault Castagne: 33:20

of what you were saying, like, we had one of the largest logistic provider actually, here in France, had pollution sensors on their all their vans, you know. And they were like, hey, you know, we want to do a partnership with, you know, I can actually get the pollution and actually, you Yes, distribute that to all the cities you work with, you know. And then that's what we did, you know. And everyone was like, Yeah, that's cool, but we don't want to show this kind of information, because we there's nothing we can do about it right now. So, so it does, you know, it's, it's, yeah, it's, you know, certain things, basically, it only happened to us once, but in terms of, like, going to the customer journey. So clearly, on the data side, there is a lot of evangelization. So for us, you know, it's, it's clearly like, you know, we have to do a lot of content, you know. So leadership, you know, trying to make sure that we break into that, that that world of the public sector, and so they can actually have more insights about, you know, how they can use that up, you know, and, and what works the best is actually for them to check another city that has done it. Also, they actually reduce the risk, you know, they like, okay, you know, it does work for them. So the hardest part is really at the beginning of the curve of innovation is trying to find these like, really innovators at the beginning, that actually will tell you, Yes, let's go for it. And unfortunately, in the public sector, very often, you have to do that for free, you know, at the beginning, and actually especially in the US, especially exactly, especially in the US, where it feels. Like, you know, it's so much competition, also in terms of, like, providers that wants to go to the US cities for for different reasons that, you know, you have to really, yeah, you have to. So it's, you know, making sure that you can show real ROI, evangelizing them. And so you really have almost, you know, three, three parts you have that first part in terms of evangelizing them on, hey, there is a problem that you have, and we are aware of this one, and we propose basically this solution, and actually it has worked, you know. And then is the second part about, you know, proving them that it has value for the city specifically, you know, and that often actually goes through a POC and a pilot, and then a third part, which actually the procurement. So in this customer journey, you have, actually, you know, at least two or three different parts in terms of actually delivering the value of data, or let's call it insights in general, or digital tools on a long term basis? Well,

Tim Papandreou: 36:05

I think that's also saying that's very challenging for people who go from the non government side to the government side. The sales cycle is very different. It's very it's much longer it, like I said, it's literally someone's has three or four extra steps in the process. But it is worth it, because once you, like, I said, once they have one happy customer, they tell all of their friends and colleagues, who's a very small network, and all of a sudden you basically have an open door, David and Marco. Like, what's your experience been with this? Like, how? What are some of the things that you've experienced?

Marco Laucelli: 36:37

Yeah, I would say that. The thing is that what people were saying regarding the three part of the customer engagement process, specifically in the public sector, with administration, there is an additional problem that this cycle is broken with different bureaucratic processes that sometimes destroy the value that you've been trying to build in the first stages. For example, well, you try to, you know, put the innovative solution, value solution, in front of the of the administration, and then at the purchase point, well, they just hired the cheapest one, so that, because the rule of the government has to to buy Things are focused on, you know, reducing the cost. And so sometimes it's very challenging doing that, at least in Spain, for example, you may try to leverage to build that value, that vision, etc, but at the end, the change process may destroy it, even in front of the expectation of the administration itself, itself that is looking for that value. But the rules made that a little bit difficult. And from another point of view, I would say that the reason for me in this there is another important aspect that sometimes is challenging, is that, well, there are a lot of cases, a lot of experiences show that leveraging data, you may get improvements in your operation. You don't go ownership cost in your whatever. So saving money been already shown that there is a lot of opportunity using data to save money. But for me, the potential of getting new things known, new revenue streams, new services is more and more appealing that just save money. But this is, this is very difficult to position because, because, even if there are some experience, there are some interesting use cases you need to find in front of you somebody that is willing to try new things, to try new services. And sometimes companies are not structured because new pieces has to be combined, and they don't have the structure to combine those pieces, even if the opportunity is there. And for me, the opportunity is much more on that side, on building new stuff, on building new services, not on saving money. And this is another challenge, and particularly this space, I think that there is a lot of open opportunity, and people is still looking at saving money, incremental improvement, or some processes, you know, tactic phase that limit the vision, limit the possibility, limit the impact of what could be already known.

Tim Papandreou: 39:23

Yeah, I think that's, you know, that's a, that's a really good point, and that, you know, at least in my experience, I think all your combined experience as well to both point the very beginning, like, you know, the innovators, this the client innovators, are very small. There's a very few of them, and they're willing to literally stick their neck up, because the procurement process is very unforgiving for this sort of stuff, but most people are interested in just dipping their toe in the water just to try it out. So it does come across as incrementalism, but that does result in them becoming more confident in working with you, and then also doing more work later on and later. On later on this, we can add the value, as you're saying. Marco, David, you know, you've experienced this probably more than most people. What are your thoughts on? How do you how do you keep the team patient? Because this takes a while.

David Fidalgo: 40:14

Yes, I mean, I just want to, want to as well. Maybe tangi on why I'm going to throw here on what TiVo and Mark was saying, because it was a big debate in the UK, apparently, about this, right? That one of the things that they need to do when data and citizens is just created public organizations into private organizations, right? Because that's an interesting thing when you're talking about revenue streams, right? They were saying is, and it was a debate, I think order and survey now is public private organization, right? But basically that's, that's something that is was a really interesting debate as well, that it might help some of the conversations that Margo and people were saying, because basically the problem with the public organizations procurement process is quite long. Is by you need to actually creating as that's your question team. You need to create a team motivated as well, trying to understand to how you can actually engage with them as much as possible, to make sure that basically is going to happen. And you need to do a little bit of lobbying as well to understanding, because it's a different one as well. You need to do loving as well around the topics and then be presence, trying to express your your positioning in the market, but as well, when you bring in the part of what market was saying of revenue sharing, no, I think there is a lot of reluctance for government to actually have revenue sharing, because the government is basically organizations. They're not running like a company, like a private company, right? That's what is the debate, for example, in the UK, that I think it was healthy debate, like few years ago by talking about what we're doing with the data, right? Is the data? We don't do the citizen? Is the citizen already to actually share the data to get revenue sharing for the country, or not? Right? Because in some areas, for example, in France or in Spain, for example, I was Marco, probably know that I'm talking quite a lot with the deity that is the guys in charge of the other roads. And this is so this is actually, why is actually government driven, right? It should be a mixture between private and government driven, but that it will help us go a little bit innovation. Because what you both are saying is just, is basically the procurement process is complicated, and then it's a lengthy, lengthy process. But to be open to innovation, you need to be more driven by revenues, not by services, right? And I think that's the the other thing that I've been realizing as well, to motivate the team, team is just basically around big presence loving in networking, ensuring that you know your competition as well, ensuring that, basically that what is your competitive advantages and how you can stay on the game and motivate in the team as well, right? Because they're long processes. And you know that in my business as well, we have a long sentence process, and this is one of the things that we, we were trying to do. And then business I mean, for me, I mean, for me, I always said two things as well. Business development is key as well. In these areas, you need to have patience and and you need to actually understanding how to move every step of the ladder on the right direction as well, and make sure your team is going with you and communicating with the team what you're trying to do so they can see that you can win in the project. Right? I

Tim Papandreou: 43:19

think that I'll also add that you need thick skin and don't take things personally, because they the government staff do change and they do change their minds because someone's changed their mind for them, and it wasn't you don't take

Marco Laucelli: 43:30

it personally. So yeah, I should say that it's not fair. Just blame the administration, because revenue share between two companies, two corporation or even two departments the same corporation is extremely difficult all the time. So that is not just demonization, very sharing is difficult everywhere, exactly

Tim Papandreou: 43:50

there's a power play. Okay, I want to switch gears now to speaking of motivating the team. How do people who are interested in this space, get into involved like, you know, there's, there's, you all showed, shared very, very unique paths into getting into this smart mobility, Smart City space. What advice do you have for a person who is just new to this area that would like to really explore a potential career opportunity in this area? Like, what? What would you say? Are some of the things that you would tell yourself the earlier self, now that you've learned that would be really valuable to know. Would love to just Just quickly, like, just some of the some of the key you can shout about, some of the key things that you'd say you should know this or be prepared to do this, like, you know, what are some of the things that you'd like to give the the earlier version of your advice if to enter this space, you might say, Don't do it. But like, it's like, it may be, it may be something like, you know, something as easy as or as spicy as that. But we'd love to hear like, how should people think about getting into this space?

Thibault Castagne: 44:55

Maybe too, yeah. Know, okay, it's always safe entrepreneurship, right? You got to be very naive when you start. You know, I think a lot of naivety, basically, naivety, ambition, if you want to go, if you want to go far and and certainly, like Will, Will or wish for, for impact, because, in the sense of, you know, how can you actually make the world a better place? You know? Because there's many other ways, to be honest, to create other startups make much more money, right? So the money has not, cannot be a first driver when you want to work in that space. So I think that's what I would say. And the two other things like and I said that to my team a lot. I think not one of the first quality in this space is being very curious, whether it's from the product people or the sales people. And you know, it's just being generally interested by people's problem and your clients problem, because if you're genuinely interested, is not gonna actually feel like a job. You're actually gonna be happy to chat about it and discuss and understand, and there's not, maybe there's nothing more fulfilling than actually then providing a solution and actually seem like, oh, girl, you know, I might clear, I can provide them something, and they actually, you know, they're using it, you know. And so I think that that's, that's what I see as, yeah, you know, some of the and clearly, obviously, like, it's quite, it's quite tech focused. So having an engineering layer, having some sort of technical background, always have,

Unknown: 46:42

yeah,

Marco Laucelli: 46:44

I think that try to solve something very small, very, very close to you, whatever you see around try to solve it, or be curious how to solve it and and apart from that, just to add something, I wouldn't have too much to whatever that you said. But I think that a systemic view of what is around the you is also something interesting to develop, because, well, you start thinking about the system with components that you can change and and what digital technology allows you to think that something could be changed very easily, very quickly. So if you start thinking as a system and what do you have around, you will find the opportunity of combining new things that never been combined before. And that's the opportunity of the visualization might be just in putting this term so that try to think about what you have around as a system and try to see how you can change a piece of the system, and the structure of the system itself will be changed so that that's an interesting game. Now, just to play an intellectual level, if you want,

Tim Papandreou: 47:52

yeah, I love that, David, I

David Fidalgo: 47:55

think I agree with what Marco said, but I will actually trying to, I think another thing I think is really important, is the focus, right? Is the focus and the ability as well, of be curious, right? Have some technical understanding it and develop it right? And have ambition, as Steve said, but have the focus and the ability as well that sometimes move out and look at it right, because it's it's always good at some point to extrapolate yourself about the journey you're trying to do and then have a look at it. And said, Do I Do I go into the right way? Because I was trying to go for a to b, and maybe actually take the longest way? Can we actually check what is the shortest way? Right? Because, I mean, we all met a lot of curious people and ambition and entrepreneurship, right? And basically, I always told, the only thing I told, I said, lesser focus. Please. Lesser focus, because something like that right, maybe take longer than if we doing this right and going that direction, the thing focus for me as well, as really important thing as well, right? And then be able to extrapolate yourself and see where you're going, right? And that curiosity, that ambition and all these things is as well, a really good wealth to do, as well as an entrepreneur, right? To realize it. Maybe you actually find starting one route, and then basically you need to take another route. Or maybe we, because people that I'm really curious as well, and I can go really big span, and it's great, but basically I don't move forward, right? So I think it's important the focus and the ability to extrapolate yourself to see where you're going. Yeah, I love that.

Tim Papandreou: 49:37

It says it was a great way for us to wrap up. It's like, you know, the have the curiosity, have the ambition. Be a little naive like, you know, try and try and figure this out. Deep Impact focus, but also think systemically. Go high level of view, get some perspective as well about what's happening around you, and fall in love with the problem. I think what you've all said over and over again is you really have to fall in love with the problem and really focus on that. And that, my friends, is how we do moonshot thinking. So you're all moonshot is congratulations on that, and I really appreciate the work. We're actually out of time. Believe it or not, we could talk for hours on this, but we are literally out of time. I want to thank the three of you for joining us. Thank you so much for your incredible insights and for having a nice conversation in the park. Thank

Thibault Castagne: 50:18

you very much. Thank you, Tim. Appreciate Thank you,

Marco Laucelli: 50:21

team. It's been a pleasure. You.