The Smart Cities Tour 2020, part of a national initiative, was presented this Wednesday and comprises thematic workshops held in different Portuguese cities. To comply with the proposed objectives, the plan is supported by 30 proposals from the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) organized by five areas: human capital, identity, connectivity, infrastructure and data.
The project was developed by ANMP and NOVA Cidade Urban Analytics Lab, from NOVA Information Management School, in partnership with Altice Portugal, CTT, EDP Distribuio and Deloitte and will start next week in Valongo. As an objective, it intends to promote the sharing of good practices between the different municipalities, as well as the presentation of innovative solutions in terms of smart cities.
To support these objectives, there are a set of thirty measures for the next cycle of European financing that aim to solve the challenges and promote the country's opportunities. Identity one of the five themes, each with six points. In this case, the focus is on building knowledge bases on assets, resources and skills, as well as on their availability, and on developing open knowledge bases on the dynamics of the territory, namely with regard to economy and culture.
There is still space for a bet on space, with the third measure providing the national territory with a spatial knowledge base, covering aspects such as cadastre, infrastructure and weather, as well as for culture and tradition. The fourth measure is to make these two elements "enablers of new models of inclusive economic development". The last two strategies aim to identify potential local pillars driving the transition to the circular economy and to promote measures proposed by the citizen in the governance of the territory.
Human capital is another focus area of ​​the measures, including proposals such as the training of human resources and the creation of live laboratories. The first plan involves the development of strategic councils, with a high level of local base, involving representatives of both the territory, companies and academia, with the objective of creating collaborative platforms for attracting investment. The following measure highlights, precisely, the bet on partnerships between the territory, companies and academia focused on research applied to the real challenges of the territory and hiring innovation.
The training of human resources, including municipal staff, in "emerging areas" resulting from digital transformation and AI is another measure integrated in the plan, accompanied by the commitment to promote the sharing of good practices and the creation of communities of interest. And, at a time when climate change is the order of the day, the last measure in this area proposes to develop actions with the objective of changing habits and behaviors that are essential to combat this problem and promote the evolution of the linear economy to the circular economy .
In the area of ​​connectivity, ensuring full coverage of the national territory with Internet access and voice communications is the first bet, with the plan still wanting to provide free access to the use of local IoT networks for connecting sensors. The measure 21 involves the creation of a model of local digital identity, which supports a single point of contact for all interactions (bidirectional) between the citizen or company and local administration, with the following strategy proposing to increase the development of participation models active participation of the citizen. And, using IoT as a lever, another measure aims to create new models of participation based on gamification. Betting on information and communication technologies for the regeneration of neighborhoods and local communities through new models of trust and sharing the last bet in this area.
Within the scope of the data, the guarantee of privacy, security and the typical use of information is one of the measures. In addition, it is also intended to build transparent data collection and storage models and promote their open availability (local open data portals) without any limitations on their use. Therefore, they can, for example, be used for commercial purposes capable of leveraging economic development through the creation of new products and services. In this area, the focus is also on encouraging open data in collaborative co-creation models and supporting the adoption of decision-making models supported by data, including local administration, companies and citizens. The last and last measure refers to the development of a citizen's remuneration model to generate economic value supported by the data produced by him, known as "data dividends".
The measures are intended to meet the challenges of cities, which the program considers to address different issues such as citizen participation, access to data, mobility or energy efficiency.
