The European Commission officially invited the +CityxChange (a smart city project) proposal on July 6, 2018. The invitation from the European Commission was for a new smart city lighthouse project under the “Smart Cities and Communities” call of the EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020. The proposal was given excellent comments and scores by the experts, and rated among the very best among the eleven competing proposals.
Under the leadership of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), seven cities will develop and test new solutions together with an impressive list of 11 large entreprises, 9 SMEs, 3 non-for-profit organizations and 2 universities, covering the entire value chain. One of the organizations participating in the project is the IOTA Foundation.
During the next five years, the cities of Limerick, Trondheim, Alba Iulia, Sestao, Pisek, Voru, and Smolyan will experiment on how to become smart positive energy cities, that use digital services to improve quality of life for and together with all of their citizens, generate more energy than they consume, and exchange experiences with cities across Europe to learn faster, together.
The organizations that will participate in the project under the leadership of Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) are IES R&D, Powel AS, University of Limerick, Energy Agency of Plovdiv, Future Analytics Consulting, Research2Market Solutions, ISOCARP, TrønderEnergi Kraft AS, ABB Norway, ATB, AVIS Budget Group, Statkraft Varme AS, ESB Innovation RoI Ltd, ESB Networks, Ove Arup & Partners SAU, FourC AS, R.Kjeldsberg, Smart MPower, Space Engagers, Colaborativa, Officinae Verdi, IOTA Foundation, NHP Eiendom, and GKinetic Energy Ltd.
The European Research and Innovation programme Horizon 2020 will fund the project with 20 million Euros. Additionally, some of the project partners add 10 million Euros of in-kind efforts to ensure the local implementation of the demonstration projects in Trondheim and Limerick. Expected project start is 1 January 2019.
Commenting on the project, Wilfried Pimenta, Head of Business Development at the IOTA Foundation, said
“Smart cities is one of the fastest growing cross-sectorial arenas of innovation for IOTA. Building on our work and partnerships across mobility, energy or data marketplace, these smart city ecosystems bring it all together. The +CityxChange consortium gathers many public and private partners around an ambitious open innovation and co-creation initiative. This is 100% aligned to IOTA Foundation’s DNA and we can’t wait to get started.”
David Sønstebø, Co-founder and Co-chairman of the IOTA Foundation, said
“The IOTA Foundation is excited about the approval of the first official Horizon 2020 project in which we are actively participating. Being able to explore and demonstrate the utility of IOTA within the smart city context in numerous cities across Europe will be incredibly valuable going forward. The fact that NTNU, Norway’s largest university, is heading this effort is tremendous. We have had a good relationship with NTNU and the municipality of Trondheim for quite some time now, and the Foundation expects this collaboration to strengthen our bond and output. As a Norwegian I am personally ecstatic about this project.”
