Building better cities for a smarter age

Although they’re located on opposite sides of Europe, the Swedish city of Veberöd and Alcázar de San Juan in Spain have more in common than you may think. Veberöd’s natural beauty is certainly reminiscent of the Spanish city’s major ancestral homes from the 17th-19th centuries – not to mention its famous windmills.

Located in the Castilla-La Mancha region, Alcázar de San Juan is often associated with Miguel de Cervantes’ famous character Don Quixote. The city contains a number of the typical mills that Don Quixote fought against in Chapter VIII of Cervantes’ book (spoiler alert!).

Whereas Veberöd and Alcázar de San Juan contain striking traditional landmarks, when it comes to sustainable urban development, both cities have an eye into the future. Driven by an urge for technolgy, agility and effectiveness within their public infrastructure, both cities have chosen FIWARE-based solutions to help them take the leap into using state-of-the-art open-source tech and open innovation.

Open source: the driving force of innovation

Over the past decade, FIWARE has been lending a helping hand to solution providers, public and private stakeholders, the academic field, not-for-profit organisations and those designing urban development solutions that consider citizens’ perspectives.

From a technical standpoint, FIWARE brings a curated framework of open-source software components – which can be assembled and combined with third-party components to build platforms – that facilitate the development of smart solutions and the integration of systems within smart organisations across multiple application domains, such as cities, manufacturing, utilities or agrifood.

Furthermore, together with its more than 500 members and partners, FIWARE Foundation has decisively contributed to the development of reference standards, following an implementation-driven open source approach: the ETSI NGSI-LD API standard.

The continued adoption of analytics in city governments is not slowing down and speaks volumes about the innovative tools and solutions available to cities. The two use cases below shed a light on how technologies such as machine learning, AI, digital twins and open innovation are effectively reshaping urban policy, and why open source development and open innovation must be on everybody’s mind. 

Open source is innovation; innovation is open source

At Red Hat (a FIWARE Foundation Platinum member ), we know community engagement creates the best outcomes, so we’re excited to share the story of a physical community: Veberöd, a Swedish smart village. Its visionary leader, Jan Malmgren, epitomises the principles of open collaboration and mutually shared value.

Malmgren shares his vision for the smaller scale smart city, nurturing ongoing collaboration by constantly iterating on community feedback.

Veberöd has a fully featured digital twin. Powered by FIWARE, this enables smart services, such as smart trees, cattle watering, traffic monitoring, water quality, and cycle security. The city has also trialled virtual reality doctors’ visits, and medicines delivered by drones to housebound patients.

The sensors and the FIWARE-based loT platform used by the city have been deployed by Sensative, a Swedish company supplying loT solutions for smart  cities, buildings, and homes. Sensative is also a FIWARE Foundation Member. Veberöd also runs a Fab Lab where 3D-printed designs to improve citizen experience are released early and often. 

By living the principles outlined above and insisting on an inclusive, iterative process, this open approach ensures good ideas can come from anywhere, and only those for the greater good are enacted for this region where the population is expected to double in the coming years.

Go here to learn more about open innovation at Red Hat.