Dear Knowledge Society Friends and Partners,

 Welcome to Tallinn - the city that has been chosen amongst the top 7 intelligent communities of the world for the 4^th time! It is a great honour and at the same time a great responsibility. Being credited does not mean that you can rest on your laurels. It means that we need to do even better - to develop, learn from partners, friends and competitors how and what to do to become more efficient.

 This time EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum meets in the capital of Estonia Tallinn on 24-26 March 2010 to discuss Intelligent Urban Transport. This is a great opportunity for all of us to learn from each other’s best practices and show our own achievements.

 Innovation is a key word in today`s everyday life and knowledge-based economy. Searching for new modern approaches, solutions and technologies as well as  active cooperation between different public-private and NGO partners helps regions and cities to be more competitive. In order to create new economic value through innovation the City of Tallinn has adopted a long term "Tallinn Innovation Strategy for 2009-2013" together with the concrete action plan. The strategy bases on 4 pillars: 1) Talents; 2) Partnership; 3) Internationalization and 4) Innovative city planning, and focuses on 6 main areas that drive our economy and also influence other sectors. These are information technology, mechatronics, biotechnology, creative economy, maritime logistics and financial services. IT as one of the leading sectors has a potential to be integrated into all other sectors in terms of added-value.

The city of Tallinn implemented and launched electronic ticketing, based on the national ID card, for the public transport system in March 2004, followed by the launch of inter-municipal ID-Ticket in August 2005. The main driving force for this project was the goal to enforce citizens to use safer and cheaper personalized tickets and to create better revenues for the city from ticket sales.  The system has been well received by the citizens that gives us confidence that developments in the field of intelligent solutions are necessary both for the city and the citizens.

 I am looking forward to fruitful discussions in Tallinn and hope that many smart ideas will be born in this meeting. I am confident that in addition to inspirational thoughts you will take back home many good memories from Tallinn and a desire to come back here in 2011 when Tallinn is the European Capital of Culture!

 

 

 

 

 

Taavi Aas

Chair of KSF

Vice - Mayor of Tallinn