SELECT for Cities, an initiative that’s changing the way cities in Europe innovate through the creation of city wide Internet-of-Everything (IoE) testing labs, launched an open online consultation today at the NetFutures conference in Brussels. The link to the online consultation is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SELECT4Cities
With a budget of approximately 4.0 million euro to invest on research and development, SELECT for Cities is deploying a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) process to find and select suppliers who will help the cities of Antwerp, Helsinki and Copenhagen achieve their ambition of becoming large scale IoE testing labs. By using the PCP approach, the consortium of cities will be able to initially fund the design of IoE concepts that explore multiple ideas from a variety of organisations. Upon reviewing the results, a smaller number of solutions will be chosen to enter a funded prototyping phase, and then once again these will be reduced for a final piloting phase.
The aim of todays newly launched consultation is for the procuring cities to hear the thoughts and views of potential suppliers, developers, city experts and other cities, about the current Internet-of- Things (IoT) market, and its potential gaps and needs.
“It’s incredibly important that this open innovation procurement is not run in a closed manner” said Karin Goedheid of Digipolis Antwerp, the lead procurer. “In order to ensure we are truly funding state- of-the-art developments to create IoE labs, we need to be hearing from those at the coal face of smart city innovation, those organisations and individuals who work to solve city challenges on a daily basis. That’s why we are delighted to launch our consultation at NetFutures 2016, a conference designed to bring together the best of the European technology industry.”
In addition to the online consultation, solution providers and other stakeholders, across Europe are also invited to participate in one of three open meetings this Spring to discuss city needs and the PCP process in more detail. The meetings are taking place in Antwerp on the 24 May, Helsinki on the 30 May and Copenhagen on the 6 June and are open and free to attend.
“These meetings provide a unique opportunity for organisations to physically meet the procurers they will be designing solutions for” Goedheid stated. “This is especially true for solution providers who are not physically based in the procuring city locations, after all the funding competition is open to any European Member State, and beyond”.
To learn more about the SELECT for Cities funding process and to take part in the online consultation and /or register for the open meetings visit (www.select4cities.eu) or follow us @select4cities on Twitter. For those at NetFutures 2016, SELECT for Cities representatives can be found in the exhibition hall.
NOTE FOR EDITORS:
SELECT for Cities is a 3 year project co-funded by the participant cities themselves (Helsinki, Antwerp and Copenhagen) as well as the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Programme.
Consortium members are Forum Virium Helsinki (project coordinator and contracting authority), Digipolis (main contracting authority), iMinds, Københavns Kommune (contracting authority), Stad Antwerpen, and 21C Consultancy Limited (partners presented in alphabetical order).
NETFUTURES conference website is www.netfutures2016.eu
MEDIA contacts for SELECT are: Susie Ruston McAleer – Susie@21cConsultancy.com and Laura Gavrilut – Laura@21cConsultancy.com