At the second SPARCS webinar, which took place on 22 April, participants received a two-and-a-half hour presentation on how business models and financing schemes work within the SPARCS project.

During the first part of the webinar, Angelo Giordano from CiviESCo explained the results of Deliverable 7.2, which deals with the challenges of business models and financing schemes in the context of Smart Cities, interactions between cities and the private sector, and access to financing opportunities.  During his presentation, Angelo highlighted that SPARCS is willing to help urban authorities to become catalysts for change and to engage with citizens and the economic sphere. 

After a short break, participants had the opportunity to join one of two parallel sessions: 

• Co-design of an innovative business model canvas and creation of adaptable emerging business models, moderated by Reetta Turtiainen, KONE;
• An innovative funding scheme customised for the Lighthouse Cities and the possible scalability of the model, based on the application of the EPC scheme, moderated by Angelo Giordano, CiviESCo.

During the final part of the event, Reetta Turtiainen, Angelo Giordano and Francesco Reda (SPARCS project coordinator) shared the results of the two parallel sessions and discussed the importance of engaging with city representatives in order to understand the potential to translate the funding scheme into concrete actions using innovative business models. Special focus was placed on how the SPARCS project can help achieve this. Reetta Turtiainen highlighted “We should make sure technologies meet the needs of the users. We should go user needs first instead of technology first. When creating the technology, we should teach the citizens to use it.” 

The webinar ended with a lively Q&A session.