Since the amount of people living in cities is expected to increase to 70% by 2050, cities will face many social and urbanisation challenges, and they will need to operate with reduced budgets and limited number of staff. The productivity of computers offers means to address city challenges and do more with less. In this paper, two Smart City projects carried out in Birmingham UK are presented. Firstly, in the Innovation Engine project, conceptual graphs were used to translate innovation experts' ideas into the specification of an open innovation model that may address the needs of large organisations with the capabilities of SMEs and citizens. Secondly, we present results of the pilot evaluation of the Digital Log Book, a smart web portal that enables citizens to access a whole range of public and private services including social housing, universal job match and jobseeker's allowance benefits. We can conclude that smart applications can be very useful to produce better public services and to support cities in the co-creation of new tools that empower citizens and organisations.