Above is a Scandinavian innovation agency driving positive change, with multi-perspective creative teams helping bold partners like H22 unfold tomorrow.

We see ourselves as a natural partner to H22, informing Helsingborg stads journey in becoming one of Europe’s most innovative cities. H22 is a landmark in that journey.

We aim to prove the enormous value that design & tech can bring to urban development and cities of the future. More often than not, when speaking about the future, you tend to use the truths of the past to shape what’s to come. At Above, we start with a vision of the future city and reverse-engineer our way backwards. By working in this way, not only do we unlock unforeseen potential, but we make sure that the systems and services we build are future-proofed.

The smart city is a living entity that evolves over time based on the needs of its citizens and where the biosphere (life of nature/biological nutrients) and technosphere (tech advancement/tech nutrients) work interdependently. With the help of digital transformation, connecting key building blocks of the city enabled by 5G applications, you can inspire insight to action. By leveraging correlating multiple datasets, such as road traffic, social events, and pollution, you have the possibility to predict, anticipate, prevent, and intervene quicker and intelligently. We envision a digital twin of the city, where you can simulate and test all kinds of utopian scenarios and natural disasters, and their effect on the built environment, infrastructure, and behaviours.

From an infrastructure perspective, we see opportunities for efficient last-mile logistics, clean water and air, reduced waste and energy consumption. And zooming in on a social, individual level there is a potential to develop solutions for intelligent social sensing, superior wellbeing, democratic city-citizen dialogue, as well as smart contracts and transactions.

Starting with the needs of humans and the planet, we model futures and reverse-engineer our way to the present, shaping functional IoT solutions and changing mindsets as we go. We design the logic of ecosystems built up by sensors, connected devices, data-visualization apps and web, and cloud integration.  These are a few projects were already currently working on that utilize the potential of digitalization to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges:

• Gaining contextual understanding in case of natural disasters using drones with a crowddroning startup, Globhe.
• Designing a predictive health application for mitigating risk of work-related injuries for healthtech startup Precure.
• Creating an ecosystem for efficient and likeable work environments with Evoko.
• Making a more transparent line of communication for managers in an Industry 4.0 remote fleet management application of manufacturing floors.
• Simulating an interoperable sustainable urban future logistics system, built on the needs of its users with Scania in an initiative funded by Vinnova.

By continuously gaining insights about what the various users of the ecosystem need, expect and demand, we translate them into functional solutions in the real world.

COVID-19 has highlighted many aspects of our society that are not working- failing models that must not return to their dysfunctional “normal”. With the emerging “new normal”, we have the opportunity to redesign solutions where society can prevent, prepare, respond, and recover at a much quicker rate. We see the current crisis as an opportunity for cities of the future to use information and communication technologies to streamline urban operations on a large scale and be better prepared for a future crisis. A concrete example is the natural repurposing of public spaces where people come together for social interaction such as parks, playgrounds, museums, and hospitality spaces, without compromising personal safety.