‘Municipal flood monitoring’ & 7 more projects from the Smart Regio Lab

How can cities and regions solve the challenges of our time while involving the population? At the Smart Regio Lab in Lenzburg, eight interdisciplinary teams developed innovative solutions with open data: from flood monitoring and participatory spatial development to an intergenerational resource exchange.

Two weeks ago, the Smart Regio Lab took place in Lenzburg. 58 participants worked for 36 hours on eight different challenges (problem statements). They tackled a wealth of current topics: renewable energy and mobility, bringing people and resources together, assessing risks, participatory processes and tourism promotion.

As organisers, we are always amazed to see what results the teams achieve in such a short time. Here is an overview:

Municipal flood monitoring

Global warming is leading to more frequent flooding. The first group therefore worked on visualisations and AI models that support the forecasting of heavy rainfall, precipitation run-off and soil water balance.

Hydrogen for everyone

We hear a lot about solar and wind energy, but what about hydrogen? At the Smart Regio Lab, various organisations in Lenzburg met to discuss the possibility of hydrogen-powered public transport and to develop a first network of filling stations from it. We look forward to seeing these discussions continue. 

Intergenerational resource exchange

How can exchange between different generations in a municipality and region be encouraged? To this end, a large mind map was created to discuss potential solutions. Specifically, it was about an intergenerational exchange between the residents of the Tertianum Im Lenz and the population of the Im Lenz neighbourhood. 

Visitor management at Lake Hallwil

Today, cities and regions have to reckon with ever larger flows of visitors around popular sights. These quickly become overcrowded and less pleasant to visit. To address this problem, this group worked on visitor management for Lake Hallwil . It uses live data from (manually installed) Wi-Fi sensors to inform visitors at tourist hotspots (Seerose Resort, Seerose Strandbad & Hallwyl Castle) and distribute them as efficiently as possible.  

Regio Cockpit

How do you create the most accurate and up-to-date overview possible of the various developments in a region? This group worked on a dashboard showing various statistics on the Lenzburg-Seetal region. The dashboard was created by combining the various open datasets available in the individual municipalities of the region. 

City-OL Lenzburg

How can you explore a city in a playful way? With a city orienteering race (OL)! For the town of Lenzburg, a prototype was developed for an orienteering course that can be completed either competitively (against the clock) or at a relaxed pace (as a tourist). The various checkpoints were set up and the course was run through once with a working app. The winner completed the whole course in just under 21 minutes! 

Participatory spatial development

How can citizens be better involved in spatial and urban development? This group worked on an augmented reality app that lets you preview construction projects in urban public space and give feedback on them. The idea is to create a kind of “Tinder for spatial and urban development” in order to involve citizens more easily.

Photovoltaic advice of the future

Advice on buying and operating photovoltaic systems often involves complex calculations and data, which quickly become confusing for the customer. Working with Lusee, this group carried out an innovative PV consultation live. With the help of the Lusee projector, the data could be projected onto the table and controlled simply by hand (watch the presentation to understand this better).

Although the challenges were set specifically for the Lenzburg-Seetal region, the resulting solutions can also be applied to other cities and regions. We look forward to their further development.

Besides the working platforms, prototypes and roadmaps, the open exchange and cooperation between different actors in society remain the most important and lasting result. Only through collaborative and interdisciplinary cooperation will we solve the challenges of our time. Initiatives such as the Smart Regio Lab show how it could be done.