The Department for International Trade Russia and representatives from Russian companies visited Manchester on the 19^th February as part of the week-long business mission “Innovative Technologies in Urban Infrastructure” to the UK. The objective of the mission was to showcase UK expertise and experience in the area of sustainable construction and infrastructure proposing advanced technologies and solutions to Russian businesses and authorities.

Russian Delegation visiting Manchester (Picture: Triangulum Manchester)

The visit to Manchester started with a tour of the MMU Energy Centre (demonstrating the Triangulum SolarPV and Battery installations), followed by presentations from Manchester City Council, Siemens, University of Manchester and Manchester Bike Hire on each organisation’s involvement in the Triangulum project. The visit was rounded off with a demonstration of the Triangulum Cargo Bikes. This delegation visit proofs the international interest in the achievements of Triangulum project. Just recently, Manchester Triangulum partners have also hosted delegations from South Korea and Japan.

Catalan and Eindhoven-based students from the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e) continued the prototyping of solutions to face selected Sabadell challenges, as part of the TUE’s Master kick-off event and during an on-site visit to Sabadell coinciding with the Smart City Expo.

Participants of Master kick-off event in Sabadell (Picture: Ajuntament de Sabadell)

The focus of this prototyping before April 2019 will be in the field of 3D modelling of Sabadell, in order to geoposition relevant real-time and static data of the city on this 3D model. During the on-site visit, the students contrasted their ideas with municipal officers from the police, geographic information system (GIS) and energy departments, as well as with other public and private operators in the field of GIS and sensoring. Their proposal on 3D modelling (called “MOD3L”) was designated as one of the finalists of the City of Sabadell’s Coinnovem contest on the 6th November.

Students in Eindhoven connecting to Sabadell (Picture: Technical University of Eindhoven)

The current issue of the German journal “Transforming Cities” features an article about the mobility actions implemented in Eindhoven, one of Triangulum’s Lighthouse Cities.

The focus topic of this issue is “Gesund und sicher leben in der Stadt”, which translates to “Living a healthily and save life in the city”. Eindhoven, with all of its innovative and first-of -a-kind solutions in the fields of enery, mobility and ICT,  is a great exemplar for a healthy and save city of tomorrow!

If you do speak German and are interested in learning more, check out the article here.

The article has been written by Bettina Remmele (Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum), main press contact of Triangulum.

The Smarty City Expo World Congress in Barcelona (SCEWC) is one of the largest Smart City events in the world. But what is it that makes it also one of the best and most popular ones of its kind?

As the world’s leading event for Smart Cities, the SCEWC provides a unique meeting point for the Smart City sector and an innovative platform for urban action worldwide. SCEWC, the event for cities organized by Fira de Barcelona, took place from 13-15 November at the Gran Via venue. In its eighth edition, it gathered representatives of more than 700 cities, featuring major capitals such as Athens, Atlanta, Berlin, Brussels, London, New York, Rome, Stockholm or Yokohama. Over 100 mayors and representatives from five continents were present, analysing how to undertake initiatives that seek to transform cities into places where the lives of their citizens improves.

Triangulum, together with its 11 sister projects from the European Lighthouse Projects family, covers almost 80 cities across Europe. This year in Barcelona, the entire community, including the two EU initiatives SCIS and EIP-SCC, came together at a joint stand with various workshops and three larger Agora sessions to demonstrate how EU funded smart cities are leading the way in driving sustainable and smart innovation. The Smart City projects presented how they are putting smart technologies to the test and how specific solutions work in practice when it comes to reducing environmental impact and improving citizen’s lives.

The Expo from above (Picture: Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum)

As part of the joint European Lighthouse Cities stand, Triangulum was represented at the Expo Tuesday through Thursday with various partners from the Lighthouse- and Follower Cities as well as from the other work packages. We from Triangulum used this opportunity to inform interested stakeholders as well as the broad public about our project and the progress in our six cities Stavanger, Manchester, Eindhoven, Sabadell, Leipzig and Prague. As one of the oldest and most experienced projects, we are in the middle of the monitoring phase and therefore have a lot of stories to tell, from pains and gains to best practices and lessons learned. A special highlight was when the Mayor of Bordeaux and former French prime minister Alain Juppé visited us at the stand to discuss the upscaling of smart cities towards a city-needs led European smart city market. 

SCC1 representatives with the Mayor (Picture: Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum)

Damian Wagner from Fraunhofer IAO, project coordinator of Triangulum, talked about the biggest challenges that we have encountered in the last few years at the Agora session “Trial. Innovate. Replicate. Smart Cities and Communities.” which has been moderated by Jens Bartholmes, Policy Officer from the European Commission, DG ENERGY.

During the Agora session (Picture: Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum)

Oriol Llevot from the City of Sabadell chaired the workshop “Challenges and opportunities for replication of SC projects from the Lighthouse to Follower Cities and beyond”, taking place right at the joint stand. Alexander Schmidt from BABLE, former lead of our work package on replication, also took part in this discussion round. They talked about how Follower Cities are tackling the challenge of having to replicate the innovative solutions tested and implemented in the Lighthouse Cities without the supportive EU funding.

Gabi Kaiser, leader of the cissemination & communication work package at SCIS and mySMARTLife, chaired the workshop “Communicating the Smart City” where she invited various Smart City communication representatives, both from Lighthouse- and Follower Cities but also projects in general, to talk about their best practices but also things that did not go as expected. Of course, Triangulum did not miss this opportunity to talk about our project-specific communication issues. Oriol Llevot and Rosa Torra from the City of Sabadell as well as Svanhild Sondresen from Greater Stavanger and Inger Hanne Vikshåland from the City of Stavanger participated in this lively discussion round.

Communications workshop (Picture: Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum)

The 12 Smart City projects as well as SCIS and EIP-SCC have all received funding under the EU’s Horizon 2020 work programme as part of the EU’s long-term ambition to create a low-carbon economy and ensure continued competitiveness in the global market: mySMARTLife,  Smarter Together, Replicate, Remourban, , SmartEnCity, Sharing Cities, Triangulum, Ruggedised, GrowSmarter, Stardust, IRIS,  MatchUp., EIP-SCC and  SCIS.

Prague’s local consortium inspired by Stavanger and their Nordic Edge Expo and Conference

IPR Prague initiated a business trip to Stavanger, inviting representatives of the local Prague consortium UCEEB (University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings) and the city district of Prague 7 from the social and health departments to join. The aim of the trip was to gain more insights into innovative projects in the field of smart home care in order to support the implementation process of the Smart HomeCare pilot project in Prague 7.

The trip consisted of four main activities:

During the first two days, the Triangulum partner Lyse from Stavanger invited the local consortia from the Follower Cities of Prague and Sabadell to their headquarters to demonstrate the use of the Blink technology. Blink is a video communication device which enables secure communication with peers as well as health and social services. It has, for example, an add-on for health devices like an oximeter. Officers from the City of Sabadell’s social action department and the non-profit association “AVAN” (“Associació Vallès Amics de la Neurologia”) also attended the presentation. The demonstration took place in order to subsequently offer Prague and Sabadell the possibility to test up to five Blink devices in their local environments. In Sabadell, Blink will be installed to 5 “AVAN” patients before April 2019, as a pilot test financed by the Triangulum grant. The patients chosen in Sabadell will be young persons with acquired brain damage suffering from physical or knowledge disabilities. The goal of this technology implementation is to improve the autonomy, healthy habits and sociability of these patients, as well as to create mutual help groups with their families and the medical and social professionals. Such pilot testing is not only a great opportunity for Prague and Sabadell but also helps to provide valuable feedback on how this kind of technology can be installed and utilised in a local context. As a result of the Triangulum implementation strategy of Prague, it is proposed to make use of video communication tools which could support that elderly people can stay longer self-sufficient at home.

(Picture: Triangulum)

The Prague delegates also visited the innovative care department of Helsehuset office of the City of Stavanger which oversees innovation in the field of social and health care in their municipality. Mr. Bjarte Boe presented Stavanger’s approach for innovative care and shared his expert’s experience on the topic of smart home care. Afterwards, the group was led through a small exhibition, demonstrating helpful tools for homes for seniors and people with limited motoric abilities.

(Picture: Triangulum)

Of course, the Prague representatives also attended the Nordic Edge Conference and Expo where they joined speeches, discussions and the general exhibition in order to get inspired and to learn from the presented smart city projects and initiatives. At the expo, the team participated in a guided thematic tour for health care. They discovered further technical devices which are working with sensors and which can be used in the field of smart homecare and learned about the Nordic health cluster. In addition, a session and a workshop on the topic of Better Ageing presented new inspiring ideas and projects. The visits affirmed that the innovative approach in the field of smart home care is essential for the future and beneficial in confronting the ageing population.

On 27 September, representatives of IPR Prague joined several workshops and discussions which were organized as part of the H2020 SCC1 Lighthouse- and Follower City day. Various communication leaders and city communication representatives from H2020 projects presented their success stories but also discussed problems and different approaches for communication and dissemination within their projects. The results of each participant’s presentation were directly visualized by a graphic facilitator in a very creative way in order to mirror the discussions.

(Picture: Triangulum)

Finally, on Friday 28 September, the Prague representatives participated in the Cross-SCC Replication workshop which focused on fostering replication and upscaling of smart city solutions among the SCC1 community. During the workshop, IPR Prague, as a representative of a Follower City, was part of the panel discussion of Follower Cities where IPR shared the experiences which they have gathered during the course of the Triangulum project.

(Picture: Triangulum)

We hope to transfer the energy and inspirations generated during this intensive week of workshops, trainings, discussions and speeches into the local projects that are already underway in Prague.

At Manchester Metropolitan University (ManMet), a sign has recently been erected providing details about Triangulum’s solar photovoltaic and battery storage installations at the Birley Fields Campus Energy Centre.

Sign at ManMet (Picture: ManMet)

As a key partner in Triangulum, ManMet benefitted from the installation of a Siemens lithium-ion battery, a micro-grid controller and an array of solar photovoltaic panels.  These innovations complement the existing Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant and the private heat and power network on site at the University. The micro-grid controller seamlessly connects and manages assets throughout the network – reducing energy costs (less power purchased at peak times/price bands), flattening of peak demand, increasing network resilience, and providing CO2 savings via the solar PV and energy storage facility.

Graphic von sign at ManMet (Picture: ManMet)

The sign provides students and visitors to the University with details of the impact and the benefits that Triangulum has brought to ManMet.

Lyse, one of the Stavanger partners, has produced a new video to showcase one of the technologies provided through the project which has proven to be of a great value to its users: At Bergåstjern nursing home, Lyse has installed a remote controlled system to individually handle air quality, light and heat at eight of the rooms.

This gives the patients an opportunity to individually set temperature and light at their own room without being dependent on a centrally controlled heating or cooling system. Staff members are there to help the patients control light and warmth – and to make sure they are feeling as well as possible.

Snapshot from the video (Picture: Vimeo)

The technology comes from the company Sensio. The nurse Synnøve Sel says that “technology can make my job easier and improve the everyday life of the patients.” This is a great example of how the Triangulum project gives real value to the citizens.

Watch the video