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__ Ireland rapid progress is in place!
Open & Agile Smart Cities Ireland started its activity in 2015 with building collaboration and planting the seeds for other organisations in Ireland, up to date a lot of the building blocks to constitute smart cities ecosystem are already in place, but yet a lot of work has to be done, scaling up, maturity readiness, interoperable systems, global KPIs achievement and more. There is a real appetite for all things smart and all the signs are that rapid progress will be made in this area.
“The European headquarters of many of the world’s leading technology firms are based in Ireland providing a cluster of many of the world’s leading experts. At the moment Ireland is coming out strongly from an economic slump. I believe that the smart economy in Ireland has significant energy behind it in all the necessary places”.
According to Mark Bennett of Dublin City Council, “Cities are going to be leaders of the change“. Dublin could raise its profile in a way that would help sell Ireland”.
OASC Ireland Vision and Strategic Values beyond COVID-19
Dr. Martin Serrano keeps actively working with European leaders to contribute in defining the vision on how smart cities will look like in the future. Covid-19 is changing the way we behave in cities. We all know now how complicated life is being in confinement, trying to keep a good balance between personal life and professional activities while working from home and/or also living with high levels of stress when there is a health or safety risk in our surroundings.
Digital technologies can alleviate the stress on these situations by enabling services at the individual level like social distancing apps, and at the community level with social networks, but can digital technology and a response plan best practices enable better living conditions at the city level? Are smart cities a way to reach these best practices and city conditions? Amid Covid-19 and the New Normality can technology establish the good conditions for setting Smart Cities?
Dr. Martin Serrano has wrote an article for the Galway Advertiser in order to understand and correctly set in context our readers about where we are in terms of Smart Cities amid COVID-19, we should first understand that Smart Cities make use of digital technologies and promote the creation of strategies and methodologies to facilitate city services, improving the quality of life of city inhabitants.
Smart cities enable experimentation of innovative technologies, and enable the test and adoption of pioneer city services, and most important, promote the sharing of best practices for the fast and best development of systems and technologies that make city services more reliable and interoperable, across different areas in a single city, as well as between multiple cities.
More details, please read the [Galway Advertiser Article]
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OASC Ireland Activities amid COVID-19
Despite having the third highest population, county Galway has the third lowest covid-19 infection rate (per capita ). Whether this is because of an accident of geography, our amazing community effort, poor international access from infected hotspots, low detection rates, or the swift actions of our public services, it is hard to say, these are the workds from Mr. Ó Brolcháin who wrote an article for Galway Advertiser on the topic.
Galway is in an ideal situation to exit lockdown early and in my opinion we should be in a position to do so more quickly than other parts of Ireland. in word of Mr. Ó Brolcháin: “My own expertise is not in virology but in systems, data, policy, and of course politics. I work in the Data Science Institute in NUI Galway and together with my colleagues in the IoT research unit we are developing a confinement adaptation toolkit for researchers. We are currently looking at how we might safely operate as a unit as we exit lockdown”.
As we begin to design our new normal, it is important to recognise that the old normal was far from perfect. We will need to protect many people who have lost their jobs as a result of the virus, and some countries, such as Spain, are looking to introduce a Universal Basic Income. We should certainly consider that as an option. One of the good things about the lockdown is our reconnection with nature, which has been a breath of fresh air, literally. With a lot less cars, pollution and noise levels have reduced. People have commented on the fact that they can hear birdsong again for the first time in years. Many people believe the environmental agenda is more important than ever.
The Irish people have proven that when the will is there, that they are hugely resilient, and well able to adapt to a new reality. Let us hope that soon enough Covid-19 will cease to dominate our daily lives, but until then we have to learn to adapt.
More details, please read the [Galway Advertiser Article]
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OASC Ireland Expertise and Leadership
The OASC Ireland initiative is being led by Niall Ó Brolcháin who served as Mayor of Galway from 2006-07 and as a Government Senator until 2011 has a unique blend of experience in both politics and technology having worked in the IT industry for over 20 years. He is now working with Insight to promote Open Data in Ireland.
Mr Ó Brolcháin a long-time advocate of Smart Cities stated, “I believe that Ireland is ideally placed to develop leading edge smart systems that will involve technological advancements in public administration, creating efficiencies and providing levels of service that would have been unimaginable only a few short years ago.”
Mr Ó Brolcháin is supported technically by two experts, Dr. Martin Serrano head of the IoT and Stream processing Unit who specialises in Smart Cities / IoT and along also with Insight’s eGovernment group led by former United Nations researcher Dr. Adegboyega Ojo who specialised in eGovernment.
More details, please read the [Irish Times Article]
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Ireland has the right size, environment
Dr. Martin Serrano is on the Steering Board of the OASC Connected Smart Cities Network (www.oascities.org) , which oversees the OASC Initiatives around the globe, and is well respected throughout the world for his work in developing the Smart City concept. Dr. Serrano is an expert on IoT technologies and He believes that Ireland is the right size and has the right political and technological environment to lead the way in terms of fast development and technology adaptation in Smart Cities.
More details please refer to [Silicon Republic Article]
OASC Ireland recognises the importance of collaborative relationships
Dr. Adegboyega Ojo former United Nations University member, head of the eGovernment Unit at Insight welcomed the initiative, saying, “We are delighted that Dublin, Cork and Galway have signed up for this initiative. The eGovernment unit at Insight works closely with Public Authorities and Governments in the Republic of Ireland and other parts of the world in the area of open government. We also recognise the importance of continuing to develop our relationships with local cities in Ireland in harnessing open and big data driven innovations towards improved quality of life for residents”.
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Open Agile Smart Cities in Ireland
Galway Smart City: [Galway Connected Hub Projects]
Dublin Smart City: [Smart City Projects]
Cork Smart City: [Smart Hub Projects]
Limerick Smart City: [Smart Gateway Projects]