„Find your Greatness” is an URBACT project that reflects the most challenges addressed by AIM together with 7 EU local communities: Braganca (Portugal), Voru (Estonia), Wroclaw (Poland), Candelaria (Canary Islands), Perugia (Italia), Limerick (Ireland), Budafok (Hungary). „Find your Greatness” aims to enhance city brands built on the cities’ potential and to successfully create Europe`s first strategic brand building program for smart cities.
The challenge addressed by the Find Your Greatness network, having small and medium sized cities, is how to communicate the potential of the city in terms of attractiveness for citizens, tourists and investors but also for other stakeholders such as attracting students and children, while being in competition with larger cities which don’t face the same budgetary constraints when it comes to promoting their potential for development.
How to turn an anonymous city with limited resources into a famous and attractive city, through building on its identity and potential using smart technologies. How to rethink the entire development of the city using all the instruments and tools available at local, national and international level in line with the development of the new technologies. How to transform the disadvantages into opportunities. How to build on the needs of the city, responding to the real needs of all stakeholders involved. It's not only a challenge in terms of local governance, it is a challenge also in terms of innovation by using ICT and other innovative tools, it is a challenge also in terms of creating new facilities for the sustainable development of the city. “Find your Greatness” is a concept that reflects the most challenges addressed by Alba Iulia Municipality together with other European local communities. Why “Find your Greatness”? Because the challenge is to build on the city’s potential starting from the needs of a city in terms of development. In the case of the city partners in the network as well as of other EU cities across Europe, the need identified locally and which was built as a sustainable mechanism generating urban development, was the need to explore and enhance the potential of the city, combining strategic marketing approach with innovative smart city tools, in an efficient way, using less financial resources and more creativity and “critical friends”.
For cities all over Europe communication is becoming increasingly important in the strategic management. More and more cities in Europe are involved in one way or another in the processes of branding and re-branding facing also the need to adapt to the use of new tools such as ICT, innovation, new business models etc. That is, in processes of positioning and repositioning the city, trying to gain visibility in a changing economic landscape.
Find your Greatness focusses on city branding and communication to directly improve the attractiveness of the city for existing and new businesses, investment and talents. The project also aims at enhancing the competitiveness of cities and at promoting the cities and their attractiveness to different targeted groups: tourists, citizens, students, investors.
This increases the visibility of city and its economic structure, while partly or indirectly it addresses also:
Moreover, at the project level there were 8 key themes/policy challenges identified for all project partners:
The project's prime focus is on the first three policy challenges: branding, marketing and use of smart e-solutions in marketing and communication. Another 5 policy challenges are derived from strategic development and brand pillars of the cities, thus defining and supporting brand vision. They are important for successful brand implementation. Municipalities elaborated them through other projects, documents and strategies (for example in smart city strategies, tourism strategies, cultural strategies, economic development and business strategies, etc.). Main directives, policies, experiences and practices in these fields will be shared with project partners and will also be included in the IAPs of each city.
