This year, we had the pleasure to be invited by the Government of Andorra to participate in the Smart City Expo World Congress with Actua.
For those of you who don’t know what is SCEWC and for those who missed it this year, I’ll write a few lines about the event and later on, I will explain our relationship with Actua and with the Government of Andorra.
SMART CITY EXPO WORLD CONGRESS
The Smart City Expo World Congress or like many other people call it, SCEWC, is a Barcelona based international summit of discussion about technological revolution in urban life.
The event itself started in 2011. Since the first year, it succeeded and became a global event to support the development of technology in cities, providing better life conditions.
In this event companies, entrepreneurs, investors, startups, research centers, citizen initiatives, governments and professionals join forces and discuss their urban development ideas, find strategic partners, win prizes for their innovative project and get inspired by others.
This 2016 year, SCEWC intended to increase the presence of innovative companies that work on smart city projects to keep generating synergies, share knowledge, provoke interesting discussions, promote out of the box thinking and inspire a call for actions, actions to improve our lives, taking into account social, economic and environmental impact.
There is an imperative need to discuss smart cities with smart citizens. Therefore companies were opened to speak with visitors to know their opinion about their innovative thoughts. The city must be created not only for citizens but also with them, because at the end, they want to enjoy it.
This year, the smart city expo gathered people that want to take advantage of the great improvements produced year by year, concerning technological advances, social achievements, urban issues, ecological challenges, new forms of economic development, and innovative forms of citizen governance and many other interesting topics related to improving our lives through the use of the latest technologies. To be more specific, the main focus was on trends in collaborative economy, infrastructure management, public safety, energy innovation, sustainable mobility, electric vehicules, co-production and co-creation dynamics, big data, open data, IOT, education, climate change, health and aging populations.
Smart city expo is really interesting because you could see real cases and technologies that are making concrete and lasting positive impacts on the life of millions of citizens and we are definitely going there again next year.
ACTUA & APIUMTECH
You may wonder what does Apiumtech has to do with Actua? Good question!
As Apiumtech has one of its offices in Andorra, we try to be active there and participate in all sorts of Technology & Innovation initiatives. Not so long ago, the Government of Andorra took part in the creation of Actua – an agency responsible for economic promotion in the Principality in terms of both national and international investors looking to develop new businesses in Andorra. Inntec was an initiative by Actua, which is an innovation cluster. We couldn’t miss an opportunity to become members there, so guess what? We are officially Inntec members now!
Coming back to Actua, it is based on three key pillars:
- Economic diversification through the development of clusters oriented towards the fields of innovation, health and wellness, education and sport.
- Attracting foreign investors and supporting national companies throughout their internationalization process.
- Supporting entrepreneurs, promoting collaboration between the public and private sectors and giving support to the development of new business initiatives.
Apiumtech and Actua exposed big data projects that were developed and we saw a growing interest in this topic. Now enterprises have a lot of data, but they don’t have the right tools to analyze it and get the right information for the right person at the right time.
Some of the projects you can find here.
In SCEWC, Actua had a stand of 60 square meters, which hosted several meetings between Andorran and international entrepreneurs, businessmen and investors. Actua explained how Andorra has become a Living Lab, as well as the status of various projects and tests such as the autonomous vehicle (PEV), the first results of the 40 sensors installed in an Andorran school, the digitalization of all the shops, already available on Google Maps through the Google Maps Business View and many more.
They developed many projects in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and in SCEWC they explained why it is benificial to invest in Andorra.
Let’s look at some of them:
CITYSCOPES
One of the first Cityscopes in the world. in the event, you had the chance to have a demo and see a spectacular visual processed data analysis extracted from large events held in Andorra.
CITYMATRIX
It is a real time simulation and visualization tool which allows to project matrix objects designed to improve urban planning. Its interactive component allows the user to vary the values of the parameters of the mathematical model and see the impact of their decision visually.
The collection and analysis of these data taken from the telecommunications network and social networking makes it possible to study and better understand the dynamics of the country. They are currently focusing their research on new patterns for tourism model in order to understand the visitor’s behaviour. Those studies and simulations allow them to see both the mobility of visitors and the impact of events in the country. The results of such analysis bring a new variable to consider in making decisions and help them design strategies that improve the experience of the visitors.
PERSUASIVE ELECTRIC VEHICLE (PEV)
The PEV is designed to encourage healthy lifestyle habits and provide a sustainable means of transportation. It combines the benefits of an electric powered vehicle, of an autonomous vehicle and of the shared bicycle programs.
In transportation of goods mode, PEV could be used as an autonomous courier service taking advantage of its attributes; small and maneuverable to efficiently serve congested city areas or cuts in traffic.
In passenger transport mode, the PEV would function as a bicycle providing more safety and comfort ride due to its structural design, which offers more protection than conventional bikes, as well as its electrical assistance system, and easiness of pedaling.
We were very happy to be part of the smart city expo and to participate in innovation in Andorra, being a tech partner. We have all the resources to increase the quality of life and we really hope that in the nearest future people will start to be more aware about their environment and think about smart city opportunities.
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