GREEN CITIES: FORUM OF URBAN INTELLIGENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY
On October 30 and September 1, the ’11th Forum of Urban Intelligence and Sustainability Greencities’ was held in the city of Malaga, a reference meeting for all the agents involved in the construction of Sustainable and Smart Cities, attracting companies and professionals of the sector throughout the European Union.
Despite the effects of COVID-19 and travel restrictions, Greencities 2020 has gathered 1,569 participants from more than 20 countries. During the 2 days of the event, 220 national and international experts have participated in roundtables and presentations, where they have focused on the tools and services available to cities to address their transformation towards a Smart City. A total of 53 cities have attended Greencities with the aim of learning about the latest developments for sustainable and Smart Cities, holding meetings with leading companies in the IoT sector.
HOPU has participated actively in this event presenting its catalog of products for monitoring air quality, noise and influx of people, as well as its service of indicators for decision making. In this event, HOPU has interacted with different municipalities of great relevance in the national scene, detecting their needs. The monitoring of air quality, the fight against Climate Change and actions around the European Green Deal and their impact on the cities are only some of the concerns that various Town Hall members have shared with us during the event.
HOPU IN GREEN CITIES 2020
As Gold member of the FIWARE Foundation, in this edition HOPU has participated in Greencities through the FIWARE hub, together with companies from the innovation sector such as HST (Germany), EGM (France) and Eridanis (France), among others partners that develop their tools using FIWARE technology.
During the Greencities forum we have presented to town and regional councils our solutions to support cities to combat Climate Change from the support for decision making, responsible investment and action plans based on innovative technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) for agile decision making based on environmental data.
Green Deal: Sustainability Development Indicators
In our space in the forum we exposed the last news of the Smart Spot, our IoT device for environmental monitoring for Smart Cities. As a device adaptable to the needs of the entity, they allow monitoring different environmental factors such as air quality (gases and suspended particles), temperature, humidity and noise, as well as influx of people in an area and the integration of meteorological stations to collect data such as temperature, humidity, speed and wind direction, among others. This device already offers an accuracy of more than 90% in the data collected, assuming a high-quality solution on the market, with great versatility in terms of monitored parameters.
The second great novelty presented in Green Cities was our indicator service, a visualization tool that allows cross-checking data obtained both by our Smart Spot devices and other relevant data sources such as social data, utilities, open data or satellite data. Thanks to the AI developed by HOPU and through this combination of different data sources, the visualizer generates indicators that allow urban planners to make informed and clear decisions based on all the data of the territory (Big Data).
The first step in the development of a Smart City is the detection of the city’s needs through the preparation of the Master Plan, a task for which a consulting service is required. From HOPU we are immersed working in this field with cities such as Las Torres de Cotillas (Murcia), where we are taking an detailed analysis to know the current state of the city to mark a roadmap in its transit to a Smart City.
An agenda of activities throughout the event
During the event we participated in the Elevator Pitch of Climate KIC Spain, accelerator of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), where we presented the initiatives promoted by HOPU that are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. The passage of HOPU through Climate KIC has served the company to implement new business models, expanding our services to consulting and advisory work to help the administration when it comes to implementing actions aimed at urban sustainability.
In our pitch we present experiences in cities such as Madrid and Cartagena where HOPU solutions are a tool that contribute to the fulfillment of the SDGs. Thanks to air quality monitoring sensors and our real-time data visualization platform, municipalities can plan actions to reduce the environmental impact of cities, with particular attention to air quality in order to fight against Climate Change and curb the emission of Greenhouse gases and other harmful gases.
In more specialized areas, we participated in the presentation promoted by FIWARE called Integrating Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies in Smart Cities (https://youtu.be/sqKgq1jXa7I), where we exposed our pilot made in the program Blockchers, With Alastria to certify environmental data in the industry, carried out together with the Lisanplast company. In this pilot we have monitored the air quality in the work environment in the industrial activity to protect the health of its workers and comply with the necessary regulations in the work environment.
Antonio Jara, CEO of HOPU, participated in two round tables focused on sustainability and environment, presenting the usefulness of indicators to combat Climate Change. In addition, in the Green Point space he presented the results of specific deployments such as the monitoring of the air quality in Cartagena and Madrid in real time where by filtering data such as PM particles, harmful gases and meteorological information with Artificial Intelligence algorithms we identify the origins of the main sources of emissions in the city and offer the administration tools for decision making.
FIWARE PLATFORM at GREEN CITIES
HOPU participated in Green Cities as a member of FIWARE, an open source initiative promoted by the European Union to standardize the applications and development of Smart Cities. During the forum we presented to local and regional councils the work that we carry out from the FIWARE community: making it easier for cities to easily adapt Smart City platforms and take advantage of the work already carried out. In this way, initiatives that have already worked in other cities can be replicated, allowing municipalities to save considerable effort and financial resources. The objective of the companies that work with FIWARE technology is to create a great community around the platform that promotes solutions for Smart Cities, improving life quality of citizens.
HOPU is a Gold Member of the FIWARE FOUNDATION, collaborating in the development of a Digital Single Market that facilitates the development and innovation of Smart Cities through our IoT sensors and our visualization tool, sharing the data obtained through Open Standards. Our CEO Antonio Jara is also a member of the Board of Directors of the foundation.
HOPU WINNER OF FIWARE CHALLENGE IOT 2020 IN GREEN CITIES
One of the surprises during GreenCities was the announcement of the winning company of the FIWARE Challenge, where the proposal of HOPU was selected to diagnose and predict the environmental impact of the Port of Algeciras (Cadiz, Spain).
The jury comprised of Telefónica, the Port of Algeciras Bay Authority (APBA) and FIWARE Zone selected our proposal among 9 finalists, where we are going to deploy more than 130 sensors distributed in 25 locations to monitor air quality, noise and climate and 1 water quality sensor to measure aspects such as marine flora, contaminants in water, salinity, dissolved solids, pH and turbidity, relevant to have a complete vision of the environment both in air and water.
After the initial 10 days of deployment, the interaction points are successfully engaging users through 
