It’s midsummer, which means the Forum Virium’s IoT Program has been running for six months! In a half a year our mission has become even clearer: verifying impact of solutions, testing new technologies, enabling service and hardware development, experimenting with new means for data collection, introducing intelligence, moving towards open modular solutions and creating DSM through harmonization. The teams is well set on its mission; through participation in key projects such as Synchronicity, MySMARTLife and the Six City Strategy’s Open Data spearhead project the team is well connected with leading smart cities cities – both nationally and internationally.
The IoT Programme holds openness at its heart. Under the Six City Strategy we have boosted open data-driven business through interesting thematic events like the “What can data do for tourism?” and trainings for businesses on GIS and data analytics. In addition, the team has produced must-read open API guidelines for cities as well as open-source reference implementations of open interoperable APIs, leveraging the work of Forum Virium’s previous harmonization projects like CitySDK and providing great resources for networks like OASC
Forum Virium’s IoT Program Director Hanna Niemi-Hugaerts sees the new IoT projects like SynchroniCity as a great addition to the project portfolio:
”We have already had quite a few successful IoT projects on domains such as Mobility and Wellbeing, so the moment is right for such a silo-crossing, market-shaping collaboration. For Helsinki it is a great opportunity to learn from the experiences of other cities and put forth the expertise the city and the business-ecosystem around it already has on APIs and data-driven business. Not to mention all the knowhow Helsinki region has on the device and hardware side.”
Speaking of hardware, one of the most fun experiences for the team was Helsinki day’s workshop in Smart Kalasatama, where citizens helped us to ideate how smart community garden could keep dwellers informed about too dry soil and motivate them to water the plants. From tweeting flowerpots the ideas shifted into using the sound of a puppy crying to get people to pick up that watering can.
[vc_gallery el_id=”gallery-549771″ medias=”58270,58271,58268,58276″ gutter_size=”3″ screen_lg=”1000″ screen_md=”600″ screen_sm=”480″ single_overlay_opacity=”50″ single_padding=”2″]In case you missed Helsinki day’s activities but are interested in getting started with some sensors quickly to monitor your environment, you’ll be thrilled to hear about the Gadget Workshop (Vekotinverstas). Gadget Workshop is going to offer assistance in building and deploying simple sensors to stay informed of surroundings, to learn about data collection and to help the city gather valuable data.
The team’s work has been catching interest in international stages such as at the IoT Platform Convergence for Smart Cities Leading Examples of IoT Enabled Smart Cities workshop. The workshop was part of the IoT Week 2017 Event in Geneva.
This workshop was exploring the Internet of Things (IoT) in the context of smart cities. The main goal was to provide an overview of the some of the international initiatives in this domain followed by presentations and discussion of reference models from some current IoT enabled smart cities. It was also a good learning experience to hear cities like Portland share their experiences with IoT.
Get involved with IoT
Got as excited as we are? You can jump right in and utilize data, build things with us, pilot your solutions, leverage developed code or hw or take part in Synchronicity Open Calls that will open on 02/2018!
In the autumn you can meet us in various internationally events, such as MindTrek on 20-21 of September 2017 in Tampere, Finland and Nordic Smart Cities Conference on 24-25 of October in Stockholm, Sweden. Do come and say hi!
Further information:
Hanna Niemi-Hugaerts
#IoT #opendata #databusiness #API
Mobile: +358 40 674 9911
hanna.niemi-hugaerts(at)forumvirium.fi