Consultation Workshop on FIRE in Horizon 2020 Report on the workshop on Smart Cities as Open, Shared Experimental Platforms and

Ecosystems Brussels, Sep 21st, 2012

Rapporteur Jarmo Eskelinen, Vice-chair, Connected Smart Cities network CEO, Forum Virium Helsinki Ltd. President, European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) Co-rapporteur Artur Serra, i2cat (Barcelona)

This report summarises the key messages of the workshop: key points from the submitted position papers presented during the morning session, points from the presentations during the Smart City session (including the lessons learned from several projects related to the topic) and key messages from the open discussion. The topics summarized in this report under the chapters called discussion, identified challenges and proposals for action. Since the event was one link in a longer series of events in getting ready for the Horizon 2020, some main messages from the previous activities have been included in this report. The full sources can be found at the end of the report, as three appendixes; executive summary of the FIREBALL smart city roadmap; results from the Connected Smart Cities network workshop, organised on September 13, 2012 in Brussels; and the letter to commissioner Neelie Kroes by the President of EUROCITIES, Mr. Frank Jensen, supporting Smart Cities and Communities.

Introduction and summary of the key messages Olavi Luotonen introduced the session acknowledging that the concept of Smart City has become increasingly important in the framework of the FIRE initiative, becoming one of the three main strands. Mr. Luotonen also defined the recently finished FIREBALL project (Coordination and Support Action, FP7) and the current activities being performed by the Smart City projects funded under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme1 form a solid basis for the discussion.

The Appendix at the end of this report summarizes some of the input and key elements of FIREBALL and the Smart City projects
1

The session, introduced by a set of five presentations followed by a discussion, aimed at identifying current challenges and to commonly discuss and identify actions to face and overcome them. The key messages from the session were: Because of the fast global pace of urbanization, cities are exceedingly important players in the global economy. Cities must have an active, central role in the smart city development. By nature, city organisations tend to be slow movers. The smart city development, however, should be fast, since the demand is huge and the market is developing rapidly. European cities are yet to wake up to this development and the possibilities it offers. Common understanding and collaboration within cities and across city networks must be created and supported. Currently, the drivers for this shared development and adoption of joint platforms and solutions are missing. We need city networks and joint activities across cities. Business success needs demand, smart cities need smart citizens. Smart city solutions should meet the needs of the people. In the International context European cities are well managed, with educated and responsible citizens. Thus, Europe has great potential in the Smart City sector and European cities can become exemplary cases to the world. Currently, however, there is a lack of ecosystem thinking across Europe. Shared European policy making makes it possible to boost wide-scale adoption of new solutions, as the history of for example mobile phone development has proven. This top-down decision-making power should be connected to the power of active user and developer communities in the cities to create a positive feedback loop. Smart cities are driven by Future Internet technologies and solutions; they are a combination of horizontal data & service platforms and vertical market sectors. The service development for smart cities should also follow the Internet model, harvesting the lateral power of the Web, utilizing wide-scale citizen participation and involvement, distributed value chains, fast prototyping and piloting, and service creation through experimentation. Most cities have existing legacies (in ICT and the vertical services sectors) and the have to be retrofitted to become smart. In Europe, greenfield development is rare. Retrofitting requires both top-down and grassroots-up approaches: on one hand, cities should collaborate to agree on smart city standards and de-facto-standards, and on the other hands, they should support open approaches to data, licenses, interfaces and participation to create robust interoperablity. Standardisation should not slow down the development of the market. Interoperability, duplicability and scalability of the services locally, regionally, nationally and internationally across numerous cities is the key to the success to smart cities and smart city service companies. One-city smart city

platforms and solutions are too small-scale, and therefore too expensive to develop and maintain. Both open and licensing based models can be used, but the cities should avoid technology or vendor lock-ins. Smart city development needs more industry collaboration, involving also the SME sector. Because of the Internet-like nature of smart city solutions, activating the developer community (SMEs, communities) to participate in the smart city service development is crucial. Currently the threshold for SMEs to participate in the development is too high. New activation and collaboration models, communication and networking activities, low-entrybarrier programs and fast funding models for prototyping, testing and experiments should be introduced.

1. Presentations Five organisations where invited to participate presenting lessons learned and vision from industry and from Smart City projects towards the Horizon 2020: 1. Mr. Steve Lewis for Living PlanIT (Private company) explained his vision of big data, sensor network and computing systems as the basis for the smart city. PlanIT is developing the urban operating system by embedding sensors and other technologies in smart city systems. He identified the urgent need for Europe to become competitive and export-driven in this sector, since the global development is fast and market is growing rapidly. He also emphasized the importance of the dynamic, market-driven approach to Smart City development. 2. Mr. Jarmo Eskelinen represented the CitySDK project (CIP ICT-PSP project). His main message was that interoperability is the key to the success of smart cities. This is a challenge, since the current market place is broken. In the working smart city market the services are provided in a true Internet fashion with an open pppp model (public-private-people-partnership). Applications should function in different cities without much extra tailoring. To achieve this we need collaboration of future Internet, smart city and living lab communities. Finally, he raised the question of large-scale service platforms supporting private, public and community services - who will manage these environments? 3. Mr. Thomas Luckenbach represented the OutSmart project (Future Internet PPP phase 1 use case project). The vision of Outsmart is to adapt key Future Internet enablers in existing utility value chains in five crucial areas: water, energy, mobility, waste removal and the environment. The services and technologies are based on an open and standardised infrastructure. One of the key challenges is to build collaboration across the whole value chain (city authorities, utilities operators, ICT companies and knowledge institutions) faster. 4. Mr. Jelle Monstrey representing the SmartIP project (CIP ICT-PSP project) emphasized the figure of the citizen (as smart citizen) and its participation and engagement through Living Labs. SmartIP digital technologies are used to

improve living and working conditions and the overall quality of life, so that a more inclusive and sustainable urban environment can be developed. Active engagement of users and citizens enables the co-creation and co-production of new services. 5. Jose Antonio Galache represented the Smart Santander project (FIRE project). Smart Santander is a real-life Internet of Things testbed, with over 20 000 sensors installed in the city surroundings of four cities. This testbed enables horizontal and vertical federation with other testbeds. After already mastering most of the technical hurdles, the challenge now is to involve the open innovation communities and developers. The aim is to achieve this through open calls.

2. Discussion notes The discussion involved an active group of about 25 people representing different constituencies. As common share points, there was a general agreement in the need for cooperation between different communities and stakeholders, and therefore collaboration was stated as a key requirement. Interoperability at platform, service and application level and scalability of solutions through easy implementation in different cities were identified as crucial aspects of a well-functioning Smart City ecosystem. Without interoperability there is no scalability, leading to high costs and one-off solutions. Interoperability should be supported by both top-down and grassroots-up / market-driven approaches. Top-down approaches are efficient for building the regulatory and technical framework for smart cities. They include for example standardisation (software layers, interfaces, protocols, etc.), regulation (legislation, architectures, procurement, etc.) and collaboration/synchronization agreements and joint ventures across multiple cities. For market creation and user involvement, grassroots-up and market driven approaches are more efficient. The power of Internet innovations lies in iterative development (in which services are constantly adjusted based on feedback from the users) and fast involvement of user and developer communities. Same approaches must be used also for Future Internet solutions. These include for example open city interfaces (open data, open source, open apis), using the lateral innovation models for smart city service development (developer community empowerment, user community involvement, crowdsourcing, etc.), and building strong stakeholder networks (cities, developers, SMEs) to achieve de facto standardisation through a dominant position in the market place (supporting fast roll-out and fast scale-up of solutions). Another important point, identified already during the presentations and enforced during the subsequent discussion, was the need to move fast and therefore, the

need to access fast experimentation and the need for tools to develop quick smart city developments and applications. There was a general common consensus in the view of the city as a horizontal service ecosystem, running an open service platform, where vertical domain applications can be easily built, providing a neutral technological approach and incorporating all kinds of technologies. Related to the already mentioned collaboration aspect of the Smart Cities, most of the constituencies agreed in the criticality of engaging the city and the citizens boosting innovation not only at industry level but also at the city administration and citizen levels.

3. Identified challenges 3.1 Competitiveness and opportunity There is a growing global market for smart city solutions. The market can be divided in a few categories, but they are dependant of each other: - Infrastructure domains; logistics, transport, construction, environment, and energy, etc.; - Integration layers between different domains; - Service layers; smart end-user solutions. One of the challenges in creating smart city ecosystems is that different domains are vertical by nature, having different existing legacies and business models. Furthermore, the b2b solution business and the end user / citizen solution business also differ. As the behaviour of the people living in the cities plays a key role in both sustainability of the cities and in adaptation of the new solutions, it is important to use iterative processes which involve the user communities in all phases of service development. Development approach for green-field, new cities, and grey-field, existing cities also differs. Most cities need to be retro-fitted to become smart. This requires lots of lowlevel harmonization. Crowdsourcing, using developer communities and SMEs as partners can be a fast route to harmonization. The invited constituencies discussed about the small window of opportunity for Europe to become competitive at global scale in the Smart City context (just a few more years) and therefore the need to accelerate application development in Smart Cities and transfer of knowledge to be competitive. There was common understanding that the current mechanisms for application development in Smart Cities are slow and that there is a lack of ecosystem thinking in Europe.

3.2 Sustainability The challenge of sustainability was addressed three different ways: the challenge of sustainability of the technologies, the question of ownership of the platform, services, applications and data, and the need of specific roles (stakeholders) to drive and accelerate the implementation.

3.3 Fragmentation First, the lack of communication and collaboration between the Future Internet community, the Living Lab community and the City, and second, the already mentioned lack of ecosystem thinking were identified as the main unsolved challenges related to fragmentation in the collaboration between stakeholders. 3.4 Interoperability and scalability As mentioned in the discussion report, interoperability (service and application level), scalability and transferability of solutions, and large-scale experimentations were listed and discussed as other important challenges.

4. Proposals for action (towards Horizon 2020) As potential solutions to the challenges identified in chapter 4, the involved constituencies discussed a large number of actions and needs (partially captured in chapter 3 and enriched by specific actions here) that can be considered as the main outcome of the session towards Horizon 2020. 4.1 Actions to support fast development Measures towards a more aggressive approach to move to smart cities; Tools and support for experimentation at city level; Tools and support for fast prototyping at city level; Tools for retro-fitting existing cities to support smart city solutions; Mechanisms to support the harmonization of the market place; Low-entry-barrier mechanisms for SME involvement; Tools for fast financing; Measures to boost innovation on top of FIRE quicker than the existing Open Call mechanism; Measures to improve the Ecosystem thinking; Measures to facilitate the process of Inspiring people (catalyzers of innovation such as innovation hubs, creative labs, etc);

Measures for new solutions and technologies to reach large audiences more quickly.

4.2 The City as an open laboratory for the Future internet experimentation (with extension to regions and communities) Assessment and experimentation actions: City as horizontal platform, technologically neutral and supporting multiple solutions; Measures to bring communities together: Future Internet researchers and industry, working together with the innovation and creative communities and the city (see also 4.3); Measures to bring innovation to everyone (industry, city and citizens) and for cities and citizens to become innovators; Experimental rings 2 as a reference point in the convergence of Future Internet platforms and the city as a open laboratory.

4.3 Measures to bring together the Future Internet, City and open innovation and creative communities Implement catalyzers to bring stakeholders together and to drive change; these catalyzers should be interconnected (such as hubs, living labs, etc); Measures to increase participation of SMEs in the Smart City experimentation context; New generation of living labs converging with the city as an open laboratory.

4.4 Measures to support sustainability in Smart Cities Actions to assess value change and ownership of technologies, applications, data and processes in Smart Cities; Actions to identify and build profiles that drive experimentation in Smart Cities; Actions to make experimentation, deployment and testing affordable for SMEs and all type of innovators.

4.5 Measures to foster interoperability and scalability of solutions

2

Actions to align FIRE to other Future Internet and Smart City initiatives (mentioned City Protocol and FI-PPP) pursuing interoperability; Connected experimental rings; Research actions to apply experimentation in real life large scale trials.

Reference to Mr. Artur Serra position paper

APPENDIXES: Background information from the FIREBALL project and the Connected Smart Cities network workshop

APPENDIX 1: Results from the Fireball Smart City Roadmap The project FIREBALL (Coordination and Support Action, FP7) brought together the FIRE, Living Labs and Smart Cities constituencies. Cities of Amsterdam (NL), Barcelona (ES), Helsinki (FI), Lisbon (PT) and Manchester (UK) participated in the project. The key outcome of the project was the Smart City Roadmap. As recognised in the roadmap, the Future Internet driven network infrastructures and applications are now in the pipeline. The Roadmap identified the need to explore how they might bring economic and social benefits to cities, besides the research communities. It is critical to strengthen the role of cities to elicit their future needs and requirements from the perspective of user driven open innovation. FIREBALL Roadmap also identified open innovation and user engagement as key approaches to bridge the gap between research and development of Internet technologies. Using Future Internet -based applications in cities benefits several areas of societal challenges as defined in the Horizon 2020. FIREBALL demonstrated the possibility of creating more effective, open and user driven ecosystems of Internet innovation. Methodologies, approaches and technical assets of the constituencies can be aligned and shared more easily and effectively. This leads to rapid adoption of services, increase of economic and social development in cities, and more effective networking and sharing of best practices among cities.

APPENDIX 2: Results from the workshop Open innovation for Internet-enabled services in smart cities, held in Brussels, September 13, 2012 Introduction These are notes from the workshops and discussions held on September 13 th in Brussels as part of the Connected Smart Cities Network event. These form part of the contributions towards the discussions held as part of Competitiveness and Innovation Week, including the Net Futures integrated sessions on September 18 th and the FIRE Consultation Workshop on September 21st. The Connected Smart Cities Network originally convened in Helsinki at the Connected Smart Cities conference in November 2010. The core group of the network consists of RDI actors active in the projects under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) Objective Open innovation for future Internet-enabled services in 'smart' cities. The network is open for new partners.

The overall aim of this work is to promote a more holistic and integrated approach to the development of Future Internet enabled services in smart cities and to develop greater synergies between existing programmes and projects and future developments, including Horizon 2020. The first stage of this is to focus on the lessons learned from work in progress, especially the projects supported through the Connected Smart Cities Network portfolio (CIP), as well as the conclusions of two key projects, APOLLON (CIP) and FIREBALL (FP7), where these results can be used to inform a more comprehensive approach to planning future strategy and implementation. The Connected Smart Cities Network works closely with the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum (KSF) and the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) in order to generate ideas and discussion about why and how cities are defining themselves as smart. One of the key starting points for this is the rationale developed in the KSF response to the ECs public consultation on the Smart Cities and Communities Initiative, highlighting the importance of smart citizens in smart cities 3.

1. Chosen approach and outcomes from the discussion The approach of the Connected Smart Cities network is to help cities deploy ICT in new and innovative ways that enable them to become smarter by developing the smarter, digital, greener and more inclusive economies that need to emerge after the recession. In particular, cities collaborate to enhance the role that the 'networked Living Labs approach', which involves citizens and business in service design and creation, supporting innovation in ICT and Internet-based services (especially for SMEs). The next stage is to promote new thinking and initiatives which go beyond the acknowledged starting point for current practice in terms of user driven open innovation and related pilot projects. New paradigms need to be developed which focus on large scale implementation, i.e. from smart neighbourhoods to smart cities and smart regions, and the long term engagement of users, especially citizens, in the co-production of Future Internet enabled services. This means enabling new forms of disruptive innovations and practice where such co-production is not only encouraged but is also increasingly embedded in both the design and the delivery of such services. This involves considering all three aspects of the commitment to smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. Smart cities need smart people as a foundation of this commitment, smart people need smart services to be accessible, affordable and, therefore, open, and smart technologies need to developed around peoples needs not just to reflect commercial imperatives. The work of Living Labs and emerging smart cities are recognised as having the potential for disruptive societal innovation as larger scale developments are supported and new value creation models are enabled. The workshops held on
3

Connected Smart Cities, http://smartcitiesnetwork.eu/why-smart-cities

September 13th set out some core principles relating to many of the main issues facing the development of Future Internet enabled services and the programmes and initiatives being developed to support these. These are not meant to be all encompassing, rather they are intended to stimulate, or even provoke, a healthy and open debate about future policies, strategies and practice. At the heart of these principles is the belief that people must be supported as human actors generating both content and services rather than as human factors to be seen as the passive recipients of technology driven development. There were five parallel session organised in the conference: WG "Connected Smart Cities experiments and platforms" WG "Smart Cities in Future Internet PPP" WG "Cloud Computing and Smart Cities" WG "IoT and Network Technologies in Smart Cities" WG "Open Data and Smart Cities" Amongst the issues being debated are: All things smart must be about being open: open systems, open data and open networks; Scale is increasingly important: building up from niche projects/markets to large scale deployments; Interoperability and replicability are essential: avoiding any vendor lock-in and enabling the integration of legacy systems; A virtuous circle of smart people, smart systems and smart services is required to generate interest, commitment and aspiration amongst users, especially citizens and, more especially, citizens who are excluded; More consideration needs to be given to cross-sectoral work, linking issues such as smart living, well-being, work and education with the current developments on smart infrastructures linked to energy and mobility; Green digital is equally important as digital for green, we need to be sustainable in developing the Future Internet itself as well as using Future Internet enabled services to become more sustainable; Social innovation needs to be fun, being inspiring in engaging hearts and minds as well as in generating new business models.

Overall there is an emerging consensus that the idea of using strengths to take advantage of opportunities is a good starting point, particularly in terms of:

a) Improving the effectiveness of cities, communities and regions thanks to user involvement, which is where the growing commitment to generating new co-production in service design and delivery is so important; b) Improving the innovation capability of European companies, especially SMEs, which is where new thinking on innovative business models, e.g. the rise of the micro-multinational, is essential to move things on again from increasingly outmoded practice to promote new ideas around Future Internet enables jobs and skills. 2. OPEN DATA There are two levels of key issues: a) Open Data and policy 1) The need for converging towards common formats and interfaces in order to enable a single marketplace where apps are interoperable across different Open Data providers. 2) The need to increase the offer of Open Data related to transparency not only in terms of improving public affairs but also as a means to create the grounds for competition in the public sector and creating innovative environments. 3) The need to advance in Open Data Open Source platforms at European level has been discussed. The more interesting aspects of this innovation are the ones focused on various actions taking place in the newly developing environments. 4) The need for pan-European regulation on privacy in regards to the aspects of Open Data. b) Proposals of action in the Connected Smart Cities Network portfolio group 1) Encourage self-coordination on the diffusion of Open Data Challenges among the Connected Smart Cities Network portfolio, crosspromoting of Open Data platforms developed by the participating portfolio projects. Connected SmartCities Network portfolio projects to collaborate regarding Open Data issues and to proactively share the experiences. CitySDK and Citadel projects to take the lead. Connected Smart Cities Network portfolio projects to aim at convergence within the other relevant projects in Open Data area, when designing or promoting new Open Data applications and fostering standardization efforts. CitySDK project is expected to contribute ton this due to its relevant profile. 2) Explore the potential of Linked Data in achieving Open Data related aspects.

3) To cooperate with DG Connect Adviser for Open Data regarding EU privacy regulations. The Citadel project due to the relevant experience in the area is expected to contribute to this.