Amsterdam - Another Smart City you should know!

Amsterdam has earned itself a major position in the Dutch scene. Developing from an angling town in the country of Holland, the city is transformed into a center point for exchange, fine arts and politics. Amsterdam is a worldwide city with a rich history.

Amsterdam is the capital and populous municipality of The Netherlands. Since its very early days, over 700 years ago, the City of Amsterdam has occupied a key position in the Dutch scene. Growing from a fishing village in the powerful province of Holland, the city developed into a hub for trade, the arts and politics. The 60 years following the warsaw Amsterdam change immensely. Amsterdam is an international city with a rich history and a highly diverse population from 180 different backgrounds enjoying a broad range of arts and culture. There were 821.752 million people living in Amsterdam (2015). It moved from being a trade city to a service-based city, and became a lot more liberally minded following the fascism of WWII. With Foreign direct investment, Superior connectivity, Digitally advanced, Skilled workforce, Business-friendly, Amsterdam now is becoming the heart of Europe’s digital economy.

Amsterdam offers a wonderfully diverse selection of leisure and lifestyle activities. With world-class restaurants and fabulous shopping, renowned entertainment options and annual events, expats will have no problem settling into their new lives. As Singapore, Amsterdam is also famous for shopping lifestyle. When tourists come to shopping in Amsterdam, the city has everything expats could want, including international brand outlets, antique stores, exclusive boutiques, contemporary Dutch design and street markets. The more people go shopping, the more abundant the city is. To come in for what they have worked, people are always willing to spend money buying stuff, which helps the economy develop. Amsterdam is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. It is not hard to see bicycles be put around pavement freely for people to drive. People there think that they cannot live well if the environment gets dirty. The way they like to ride a bike can both protect the environment and helps them to practice as well as improve their health.

The city of Amsterdam can look back on a long and interesting history, and today it prides itself on a rich cultural life and a diverse population. The people who live there, the people who work there, the people who study there and the people who visit there are what makes Amsterdam vibrant and multi-faceted. Be different from night style in Singapore, people in Amsterdam usually spend a night quietly or as wildly as they wish. The main spots to spend a night out include Leidseplein, Rembrandtplein, the Jordaan and the Red Light District, although this last one can be overcrowded by tourists. These areas are packed with bars, live music venues and night clubs.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has been voted one of the best airports in the world on numerous occasions, and it’s easily accessible with fantastic rail and road links, in addition, there are excellent high-speed rail services connecting Amsterdam to various cities, so the rest of Europe is practically at the end of the street.

The Netherlands is one of the most competitive business locations in the EU, and combined with a host of networking opportunities, numerous European headquarters and a large variety of industries calling Amsterdam home, job opportunities for expatriates just keep opening up. In addition, Amsterdam's start-up scene is flourishing, offering even more options on the job market– including starting your own business. Now, we can easily recognize that Amsterdam is the city with a high quality of life.

In Amsterdam city, air pollution is an invisible and silent killer in cities. That is why many trees wifi is invented and installed. What can they do? Treewifi makes air pollution visible through smart bird houses that measure air pollution and show the status of the air quality through LEDs that illuminate the tree it's in. When citizens improve the air quality in their street the bird house gives free wifi to reward positive change. Placing our bird houses in city trees, the product will light up to show how good or bad the air quality is in your neighborhood. If it’s clean, treewifi will offer you free internet. By installing a network of treewifis bird houses in a city, municipalities get better insights when it comes to air pollution in urban environments. The data is hyper local, high-quality and real-time. The bigger the network, the better the data.

The goal is to have 1.000.000 solar panels in the region of Amsterdam. Amsterdam has about 800 ha of roof space that can be put to use by providing energy through the sun. Hence this is a huge opportunity to accelerate the energy transition in Amsterdam. They also use solar technologies. Every house on Amsterdam city has at least one solar panel, which means, there are totally 850.000 panels in this city. The Amsterdam arena successfully use solar and wind energy to make it more efficient. The stadium basically acts like a giant power supplier for the neighborhood. The Government also provide energy when people of Amsterdam need it. For instance, if a citizen is using an electronic car and they decide to park it in the stadium, the people in the stadium would say whether or not the citizen wants their car to be charged or donated electricity from the car. In other words, they try to get everyone involved in the grid.

The Edge which is a workplace building in Amsterdam city is other than be known as a building covered with solar panels, the building has an app associated with it. Every employee is connected to the app on their smart phone. This app allows them to customize their working environment like light intensity and temperature. The app also tracks employee’s energy consumption so that everyone is aware.

If you like the ancient city and the quiet night to relax, Amsterdam city will be the best. People are always trying to improve their life with technology. To be smarter and smarter, human sense is the decided part. If they want their city to be smart, the education will be soon upgraded. The smarter people are, the smarter their city will be!

By: @nguyentrung