Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona, and John Chambers, Cisco Chairman and CEO, have announced a planned collaboration of initiatives intended to move Barcelona closer to being a global reference model for sustainable urban development.
Building on already ongoing collaboration between Cisco and Barcelona on the the ‘iCity’ project, these initiatives will make Barcelona a more viable blueprint for modern urban development, for other cities worldwide to consider.
Cisco will support the creation of the Barcelona Institute of Technology for the Habitat (BIT for Habitat), the definition of a new City Protocol, and the development of new technology solutions for city services.
BIT for Habitat,through collaboration with companies in the private sector, will intended to drive research into how innovation in new urban services can benefit Barcelona, and how best to employ any projects that will help this. The focus will be attracting partners from both public and private sectors who will promote these projects, and encourage an improved climate (in Barcelona and abroad) of R&D, consulting and education worldwide, in areas linked to Smart City development.
Barcelona’s city council will promote association or partnership agreements between BIT for the Habitat and other international organisations such as UN Habitat.
Cisco will become a Gold sponsor of BIT for the Habitat, contributing human resources, thought leadership, pertinent case studies, foundation fees, and a networking infrastructure.
The city protocol will measure city efficiency and overall quality, assess structural, functional, sustainability and social criteria. This will help when it comes to defining the projects, processes and policies intended to further the short and long-term progress in the area of urban habitat.
The city protocol has already been endorsed by MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and could serve as reference for governments, municipalities, planners and developers who want to convert their cities into “smart cities”.
Cisco intend to develop a technology reference architecture known as the City Cases Methodology. It will define the ICT aspects of the smart city protocol, and will be an intrinsic part of the overall city protocol model.
New city services will go through field testing in Barcelona.The pilot tests are as followed: –
– A pay per use model for the city’s lighting in the place of the current fixed infrastructure.
– Development of self-sufficient city blocks for energy.
– Monitoring of energy consumption in public buildings
– More efficient collection and use of rainwater in the city
– Development of a smart bus network
– Smart parking for the city.
– Embedded information systems tasked with the promotion and management of relevant new relations/social interactions surrounding these projects
Cisco will coordinate their collaboration from the new Cisco Innovation Center that will be established in the next few months in Barcelona’s new Smart City Campus.
