At the end of May, the SAFE-CITIES project held the General Assembly meeting and Workshop in Eindhoven. This marked the next step towards our final goal: making European public spaces more secure and resistant to threats.

The event was divided into three parts, each lasting one day. The first one was dedicated to summarising the work done so far. We started in November 2022 and have one year to deliver all expected results. Therefore, it was crucial to review the current actions and provide updates regarding all work packages. Finally, the project team presented the upcoming activities and planned further steps.

The next part was the Security and Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) workshop. As we have informed, the SVA framework is one of the key products to be delivered by our project. This tool can help practitioners identify weak points in both current and future planned public spaces. Based on that, users can obtain recommendations on how to adjust specific areas to mitigate potential risks. SVA is supported by an interactive platform that enables the simulation of complex scenarios, taking into account crowd behaviour and various types of attacks in a realistic 3D virtual environment.

We are in the process of developing and refining these solutions. That’s why we invited security practitioners to ask them about their opinions on the SAFE-CITIES products. We were particularly interested in collecting feedback on the usefulness of our platform. Based on the feedback, which includes many practical insights, we are confident about how to utilise the remaining year to ensure the developing platform meets end users’ expectations.

The event in Eindhoven was organised in connection with Paaspop 2024 – a music festival held annually in the Netherlands. Some of the project partners and practitioners working with us are involved in this event. Therefore, we prepared a short video showcasing how the SAFE-CITIES platform and tools can be used during mass events like Paaspop.

All members of the project consortium are helping to progress the next actions. In initiatives such as SAFE-CITIES, contributions from technical partners responsible for the practical development of planned tools are crucial. The last day of the event was dedicated strictly to activities related to the technical aspects of the solutions. This meeting with a wider group of collaborators was very useful to us and served to debrief and evaluate the current status of the work.

We are not slowing down with our planned activities. There is another SAFE-CITIES event on the horizon. We are organising the Hackathon on 26th June in Crete. Do you want to learn more? Click this link.