Everyone is entitled to see their quality of life improve, the chance to see that the world their children and grandchildren grow up in offers more opportunity and long term sustainability than they had when growing up. This is the same whether you are from a big city, small city, town or village. For this reason I was happy to speak with Eva-Maria Gärtner from the Municipality of Gjesdal on the west coast of Norway about “Smart Gjesdal”. Gjesdal’s population has recently pas

The UNaLAB project is yet another project funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 program. It is aimed at finding responses to climate change in a sustainable way, through nature-based solutions. The goal of the project is to demonstrate innovative systems for water management using an ecological approach. Aim of the UNALAB Project All around the world, major transformations are occurring, and the environment is becoming more and more vulnerable and exposed to ris

There are many factors that contribute to a smart city project being a success, this article is going to look at two key areas that are not always highlighted as a priority, but which we believe have a big impact. The first of these is the mindset. The mindset of city leaders, administrations, citizens and the private companies that cities are working with to deliver smart city projects. City leaders and administrations must have the understanding and belief that the smart ci

In 2017 over 50% of the world’s population live in urban areas, this figure is expected to rise to at least 66% by 2050. With this startling fact in mind, it has become increasingly important for cities to consider their environment, to protect human health, improve sustainability and not damage their local ecosystems. Each year Yale’s environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks the countries that are leading the way in environmental performance – the latest study released pu

You may have read last week the first part of my showcase on Italian smart cities, here is Part 2 and I will discuss what some of the largest cities in Italy are doing in order to be smarter and more sustainable in their development. Milan has the biggest economy, population and size in all of Italy, this is why it is one of the leading smart cities. They have invested in laboratories which are involved in cutting-edge research to take the metropole one step forward. From mar

Since the introduction of the concept of Smart Cities, many countries all over the world are striving to develop and implement programs that put their cities on the smart city map. Smart Cities are established with the core concept of integrating smart ICT and Internet of things. The result is the creation of more secure and manageable systems, where the city administration will be aware of the needs and requirements of the citizens and the citizens will be provided with bett

Kiev, Ukraine – Population 3 million. The city and country have begun a rebuilding process following an era of corruption and conflict with their Russian neighbors. It is an important center for science, industry, education and culture in Eastern Europe. Recently, it hosted the annual Eurovision competition and its mayor is the former boxing heavyweight champion of the world, Vitali Klitschko. This is the setting for their groundbreaking Smart City project – revolutionizing c

Blockchain technology is a type of a distributed or decentralised ledger that is designed to keep track of and record of all digital transactions. It is different from traditional ledgers as it does not have a central administration i.e. banks, in fact, it relies mainly on the networks of ledgers that are replicated. The replicated ledgers are linked and synchronised to one another via the internet and hence it can be visible to everyone that is part of the network. Blockchai