Knowledge Zone Curacao
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The term smart city was first coined in 1998 by Van Bastelaer (Anthopoulos, 2015). Till now the term Smart city is not clearly defined. We define it as: “a smart city is a well-defined geographical area, in which high technologies such as ICT, logistic, energy production, and so on, cooperate to create benefits for citizens in terms of wellbeing, inclusion and participation, environmental quality, intelligent development; it is governed by a well-defined pool of subjects, able to state the rules and policy for the city government and development (Dameri, 2013, p. 2549).
Smart Island Initiative, a European organization of small islands, defines a Smart Island as an insular territory that embarks on a climate resilient pathway, combining climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, in order to create sustainable local economic development and a high quality of life for the local population by implementing smart and integrated solutions to the management of infrastructures, natural resources and the environment as a whole, supported by the use of ICT, all while promoting the use of innovative and socially inclusive governance and financing schemes (Smart Island Initiative, 2017).
What is the K-Zone?
transsectoral innovation, which makes cooperation important. The idea behind the Knowledge Zone is that knowledge exchange will be easier if businesses are clustered within one zone (knowledge-zone.com, 2012; Goede et al, 2012). 45 companies, institutions and organisations (both private and public) have joined the Knowlege Zone.
Thesis on the K-Zone
"Both from theory and from practice, the K-Zone has potential to uplift a small island developing state. However, what is needed is more cooperation, that can generate synergy. This can be made possible through making the K-Zone an official organisation, with frequent meetings, a strategy, clear responsibilities for partnering organisations and clear goals."
