"Basically that's a great opportunity for Chinese companies, for at least three main reasons. When you invest in Bulgaria you can access the whole of Europe. Bulgaria is the closest country in the European Union to China and part of the Belt and Road Initiative," Yanev said.

At the moment there are just fields with breathtakingly beautiful sunflowers. But after the harvest, in only a few months, heavy machinery will come and begin constructing Europe's first smart city, the showcase of a concept proven to be successful a number of times so far in China.

The massive project, which is still at an early stage, foresees the construction of a tourist and entertainment complex which would include hotels with casinos, an aquapark, conference halls, a shopping mall, offices, green spaces and other facilities near the town of Elin Pelin.

The Saint Sofia project, a huge, high-tech entertainment, retail, hotel and office complex funded by Chinese money, is expected to be built near Bulgaria’s capital over a three-year period.

Athens Digital Lab is seeking digital ideas that change the city and invites individuals, groups and new technology enthusiasts to submit their proposals addressing the real needs of the city that can evolve into advanced Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for smart cities. Proposals are requested to cover the following themes: Cleaning, Parking, Green Management, Public Space Management, Vehicle Fleet Management, Open Theme.

The Greek urban system is characterised by the primary role of the metropolitan urban areas of Athens and Thessaloniki; roughly half of the population of Greece lives in these two cities. Metropolitan governance is not foreseen in the Greek local government law despite the population size and challenges of these two extensive areas. There is a number of much smaller cities (under 200,000 inhabitants) which are unable to compete with them in most indicators. Many port-cities such as Rhodes, Heraklion, Chania, Nafplio, Kavala, Volos are depending their local economic development mostly on tourism. Regarding the main urban strategies of the last decades these were more focused on physical planning and less to the confrontation of social and economic problems. Nowadays youth unemployment, social innovation, urban sprawl, heritage management and tourism planning are some of the key challenges Greek cities are looking into.

Through our work, we've found that cities play a leading role in bringing about positive change and that municipalities around the world are managing to overcome slow bureaucratic procedures that often harm the central administration. Public officials must move toward a digital structure if they want to provide their people with faster, more effective services. It must be where the people are, and people are increasingly online now. Athens has committed to bringing more information online, making its actions transparent and accessible, unleashing resources to help people with more complex face-to-face challenges.

The City of Athens provides 55 online services through its central electronic services site, which is another low-profile service which has not been widely advertised. Recently, digital signatures have also become possible, meaning all documents that pass through the municipality can be digitally signed by civil servants and a handwritten one won’t be needed.

teps have already been taken in this direction. This year, for the first time ever, childcare centers introduced electronic registration. “For us, that was a prototype because it was very low cost, developed over the course of three to four months, and included 6,000 families. Before that, they’d have to get all their papers together and go to Sepolia to submit them and wait in very long lines to complete the process. Now that can all be done online and safely. That not only saves time for thousands of people – not to mention the stress – but it also strengthens transparency.”

I ask Hambidis what he would change in the City of Athens if he had the power. “That’s a good question. Let’s see, it’ll be easier for me to tell you what I’m envious of. I’m envious of the projects that, with the encouragement of the local government, facilitate a market for the expansion of high-speed broadband networks. This to me is the base that’s needed to even begin talking about a smart city. If you don’t have high-speed internet, both wired and wireless, then you cannot properly deploy applications. The other would be to be more open. Information is becoming more digital and data has increased in volume. This data is a public good that must be open and available. Open information enhances transparency and accountability, which in turn helps citizens be connected with their city’s administration. If someone goes to a seminar about smart cities, they will learn about smart lighting and other things that cost millions of euros. I’m all for smart lighting, but if someone can’t find out where the children’s playgrounds or the senior centers are in their city with just a few clicks of the mouse, then we have more important things to take care of first.”

In recent years the City of Athens has drawn valuable tips and information from big metropolises around the world, particularly New York. The aim is to optimize the technology that we already have and make it more readily available to citizens. Out of this came the idea for City Hall to do something it’s never done before, appoint a chief digital officer to coordinate the effort.

As technology changes, Wellington is well positioned to create more empathetic, responsive environments. At present Council is scaling up projects like pedestrian mobility to cover the whole city. This investment will help lead to the creation of better street environments and city spaces. In turn, this will help the city and its communities to transition through the disruptions caused by technologies such as autonomous vehicles, new manufacturing technologies and changing climates.

understanding urban change Council processes to become more effective  Council to address the problems and opportunities of growth. 

a flexible Internet of Things backbone making the installation of sensors simple, inexpensive and from any provider or maker an inter-agency platform facilitating co-operation across the social and community agencies in the city machine learning and advanced analytic processing to create further insight into city issues putting virtual reality engagement platforms in place to make that data accessible, useful and understandable developing our Civic Hacking communities to create new citizen made apps, websites and services using city data.

In summary, the New Zealand winners and categories are as follows:NEC in the Public Works category. NEC in collaboration with the Wellington and Christchurch City Councils developed KITE, a standardised sensing platform that supports economic and environmental council initiatives by collecting sensor data. The platform gathers information on air quality, water quality, pedestrian mobility, waste management, parking, street lighting, solvent detection, and graffiti detection.Unison Networks in the Smart Grid category. Unison Networks has developed a long term Smart Grid strategy which includes using a range of sensors to improve performance and to enhance asset utilisation throughout the Unison Network. The Smart Grid will help minimise customers’ long term costs while maintaining their power quality needs. Qrious in the Tourism, Arts, Libraries, Culture, Open Spaces category. The Qrious Voyager portal uses big data and analytics solutions to analyse anonymous mobile location data. Voyager provides interactive tourism insights across New Zealand through an intuitive web portal. Waikato District Health Board in the Connected Health Category. SmartHealth is a Waikato DHB free online health service. Patients download the HealthTap app to connect to healthcare professionals across the region by video, voice and text link. It provides a knowledge base of doctor-approved health information, access to online doctors during evenings and weekends; and online appointments with hospital specialists without leaving your home. It’s particularly helpful for people living in rural areas who have poor access to doctors or have to travel long distances for short hospital appointments. King continued to say, "It's an extraordinary achievement and we look forward to receiving more cutting-edge smart city innovation submissions next year."Now in its third year, SCAPA recognises the most outstanding smart city projects in Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) across a total of 14 functional smart city award categories. This year 18 projects were named as the best in Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) chosen from a total of 46 finalists across APeJ.IDC Government Insights' team went through a rigorous six-phased benchmarking exercise to determine the Top Smart City projects for 2016-17. These included identifying and cataloging the key Smart City projects in Asia/Pacific by IDC Analysts across APeJ (25%), online voting to determine public opinion (50%), and assessment by an International Advisory Council (25%).For more information and a full list of winners visit the Smart Cities microsite http://www.idc.asia/IDCSCAPA or contact Jefferson King at jking@idc.com.

He notes that up to 13% of the tech hubs in Africa have established partnerships with mobile operators, particularly Orange (France), MTN (SA) and Vodafone (UK).

"There is a range of smart city initiatives taking place across the African continent, from technology hubs like Ghana's Hope City to business and residential areas, like Johannesburg's Waterfall City and Lagos' Eko Atlantic," notes Burton.

South Africa's Cape Town and Kenya's Nairobi are tipped to become the first cities to achieve this 'smart status'.

merging markets, like those in Africa, have the opportunity to leapfrog now-redundant technologies in developed nations and create truly smart cites.

“With our innovations and investment in various technologies, we develop an open platform for Smart Cities, which is compatible with various devices and supports a wide range of applications. We aim to be the rich soil that supports the robust and sustainable development of Smart Cities.  We will continue to work together with our ecosystem of partners to create top-level designs addressing city administrators’ needs and achieving the ultimate goals of a Smart City – to enable good governance, promote industry development and deliver benefits for communities,” concludes Diender.

mart city initiatives often focus on improvements around infrastructure and healthcare, but Huawei advocates a “first safe then smart” approach that emphasises public safety as a starting point.

ities globally have common objectives regarding the safety, healthcare, and education of their communities, as well as the delivery of services in the form of utilities and transportation networks. The growth of ICT is enabling cities to better meet these objectives, allowing for smart solutions that aim at developing the urban ecosystem while managing assets and resources efficiently. “There is no clear definition for what constitutes a smart city, but typically we think of it as a city that “gets you” and addresses needs and challenges in an intelligent way,” says Diender. “For example, it’s a platform that links initiatives by government, giving insight to officials who need to anticipate challenges and take action, while driving things forward in an accessible way.” An example of this might be street lights with built-in motion sensors that allow the lights to turn off and save power until movement of a vehicle or pedestrian is detected. “These motion sensors might take the form of a camera, which could also act as an additional eye for the police,” adds Diender. “If you add advanced image recognition to those cameras, they could even detect flooding in the streets and identify water leaks. In this instance, you’ll have one smart device talking to three industries – security, lighting, and water.”

South Africa is ideally suited to adopt smart city technologies, with the potential to leapfrog international counterparts and lead a new generation of thinking. This is according to Edwin Diender, Vice President, Government and Public Utility Sector, Huawei Enterprise Business Group.

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Several cities have been cooperating in shaping our attitude towards Smart Cities as well as in creation of the document,  and we have also used some examples of already implemented projects in cities. When setting up the support mechanism, we relied on information from a questionnaire survey that we tried to reach as many places as possible. In our communication with cities, we plan to continue to acquire new themes as well as to improve the Ministry approach to Smart Cities, including

The Ministry has developed a support scheme to support pilot testing of innovative solutions in practice directly on the territory of the city and, with the help of active targeted counseling, to improve the managementof the transition towards administrative and fi nancially more demanding activities. In the framework of the pilot testing of the proposed support mechanism, 5 projects are to be supported, with the allocation for one project covering the costs of preparing a feasibility study of the solution and using a certain share of co-fi nancing of the Ministry resources and City resources for pilot testing in practice. We expect the launch of the pilot call in the 4th quarter of 2017.

The main reason why Slovakia should be involved in the Smart City process is that the market for Smart City services is constantly growing. This year, it is made up of $ 93.5 billion, with global growth expected to reach $ 225.5 billion by 2025. Small and medium-sized businesses will thus create a great deal of opportunity to develop their business. The ministry wants to respond to the global trends and to support the introduction of innovative solutions in Slovak cities, which can help not only their progressive development but also the support of small and medium-sized enterprises. Through the specifi c support mechanisms prepared by the Ministry, it will stimulate an emerging segment of the market for solutions in this area, with the added value of the projects to include a specific economic, social and technical aspect.

PROJECT SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY – The project is part of the national project of the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for the Development of Civil Society entitled Supporting Partnership and Dialogue in the Field of Participatory Creation of Public Policy which is financed by the operational programme Effective Public Administration. The specific output of the project will be an audit in line with the ADVANCE methodology, including an action plan and recommendations for sustainable urban mobility planning for Banská Bystrica.

We want towns and cities in Slovakia to be towns and cities for the people. This concept, known abroad as SMART Cities, defines a new approach to the management (control) of towns based on four priorities, namely investment in human and social capital, investing in transport and communication infrastructure, smart management of natural resources and a participatory approach.

Estonia's first Smart City Conference took place yesterday in Tartu. Conference brought together more than 100 guests interested in smart-city-themes from 17 different countries over the world.  Presentations: Hannes Astok - Smart Tartu - Today and Tomorrow Toomas Kärner - Global Mobile Megatrends and what Citizens Actually Want Rein Ahas - Big Data and Urban Mobility Andres Osula - Jiffi - the World's First Hands-Free Ticketing Solution for Passengers Francisco Rodriguez and Raimond Tamm - Towards Smart Zero CO2 and Zero Energy Cities across Europe SmartEnCity H2020 lighthouse project - how will citizens of Vitoria, Tartu and Sondeborg benefit and what will be the European impact? Sampo Hietanen - Intelligent Transport System and Mobility as Service for the Citizens Peter Kentie - Marketing Smart Cities - Experiences from Eindhoven

Our mission is to support the development of smart city solutions in order to improve the life quality in the cities, and also to accelerate the export of enterprises. This will be achieved via internationally valued innovation environment, where city authorities and citizens, scientists, enterprises etc. are co-creating smart solutions based on contemporary technologies, that make providing both public and private smart city services more effective and easier to use.

By the year 2020 Estonian Smart City Cluster is internationally known as the leading developer and exporter of smart city solutions that are based on ICT and other technologies.

Main focus areas of the cluster are:1. ICT in different actions and processes of the cities2. ICT and other technologies in developing healthcare and social welfare in an efficient and cost effective way3. Energy saving in building and maintaining different buildings

The activities of the cluster are being co-financed from 2015-2018 by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) via the Enterprise Estonia cluster development programme. The project will last from 1 December 2015 to 30 November 2018 at a total cost of €1,200,000, 50% of which comprises support from the ERDF.

Prince Mohammed, who became heir to the throne this summer after his older cousin was removed from office, has vowed not to repeat past mistakes, insisting that his Vision 2030 will proceed regardless of oil prices. His government has cut subsidies, slashed spending to trim the budget deficit and it plans to introduce value-added taxation next year to raise non-oil revenue.

The world’s biggest oil exporter wants to overhaul the economy while creating enough wealth to avoid the risk of social unrest. Similar efforts over the past three decades have floundered, with plans losing steam as soon as crude prices recovered. Some landmark projects, such as a $10 billion financial district in Riyadh, are struggling to take off.

A promotional video released on Tuesday features a lifestyle so far unavailable in Saudi cities. It showed women free to jog in leotards in public spaces, working alongside men and playing instruments in a musical ensemble. The one woman wearing a hijab had her head covered with a patterned pink scarf.

The ambitious plan includes a bridge spanning the Red Sea, connecting the proposed city to Egypt and the rest of Africa. Some 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) have been allocated for the development of the urban area that will stretch into Jordan and Egypt.#lazy-img-319534026:before{padding-top:75%;}

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans to build a new city on the Red Sea coast, promising a lifestyle not available in today’s Saudi Arabia as he seeks to remake the kingdom in a time of dwindling resources.

Saudi Arabia expects to complete NEOM’s first section by 2025.

The country appointed Klaus Kleinfeld, a former chief executive of Siemens AG and Alcoa Inc, to run the NEOM project. Officials hope that a funding program, which includes selling 5% of oil giant Saudi Aramco, will raise $US300 billion for NEOM’s construction.

The business and industrial-focused city will span 10,230 square miles. To put that size in perspective, 10,230 square miles is more than 33 times the land area of New York City.

Now the Saudi Arabian government has come up with a project that could give its economy a boost: a $US500 billion mega-city that will connect to Jordan and Egypt and be powered completely by renewable energy.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter, but falling oil prices have made it more difficult for the country to pay its oil workers.

Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) has signed the smart city consulting agreement to design ICT infrastructure and smart services for Jeddah Tower & Jeddah Economic City Project on behalf of the JEC partners (which includes Kingdom Holding Company) with Orange Business Services of France.

Alibaba Cloud, the company’s cloud computing unit, today announced a new initiative with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), the capital’s city council. Called ‘Malaysia City Brain,’ the new project is aimed at reducing traffic, monitoring the flow of vehicles, and improving urban planning across the country.

Since launching a digital free trade zone with the Malaysian government last November, Alibaba is taking its collaboration one step further.

Malaysia cannot build smart cities on its own. Its partnership with Alibaba shows how collaboration can drive technological advancement forward. Data democratisation should help speed up development through internal collaboration.

Malaysia City Brain will generate vast amounts of data. The system will analyse data captured by images, speech and video. Alibaba, Malaysia Digital Economy Corp and Kuala Lumpur City Hall developed the system. They will give entrepreneurs, start-ups, research institutions and universities access to the data. They want them to use the data to deliver analysis, insights and innovations. This team effort should provide improvements for its future deployment.

Authorities must address rapid population growth in urban areas. Traditional techniques and management are inadequate. Malaysia needs to overcome traffic congestion and overcrowding. Other challenges include the lack of affordable housing and damage to the environment.

At the same time, there are challenges to overcome. Analysts question whether these cities will do enough to help reduce crime. They also query whether the poor will benefit. Malaysia’s energy efficiency awareness is currently weak. The country lags behind other nations in adopting green technology. It will take time to catch up.

Malaysia’s smart cities are some way behind as they are still new. That is not a bad thing as Malaysia has avoided the pitfalls of being an early adopter. Authorities can apply advanced technology and systems that already work.

The concept goes beyond the relationship between citizens and public service providers and provides the tools that encourage citizens to be more active and more participatory in community life. For example, provide feedback on road condition, adopt a healthier lifestyle, or participate as volunteers in various social activities. In this way, a Smart City ("A Smart City") will be a more attractive place to live, work and recreate, the Pilot Project Guide says.

In addition to using the catalog for the 2017-2018 school year, school performance data for the past three years has been uploaded into the app. Altogether this year, 120 teachers and almost 1,500 students will benefit from this solution in Alba Iulia. With e-album iulia, available on Android and iOS, tourists have access to information about the city's main objectives, and local businesses can hold dedicated campaigns.

Telecom operator Orange announced on Wednesday that it has completed the first stage of the Smart City Alba Iulia 2018 pilot project. In this framework, 14 innovative technological solutions were implemented within only one year. According to a communiqué of Orange, at present in Alba Iulia there are over 600 sensors which, together with fixed and dedicated mobile communication networks, create a digital infrastructure of the city. Thus, the City of the United States owns broadband Internet networks, 4G / 4G +, Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN, provided by Orange Romania and secured through the Business Internet Security platform. In addition, the Wi-Fi network includes over 228 access points to the city and city and 15 access points to public transport. "In almost one year of Wi-Fi hotspots on buses, about 8% of the 60,000 Alba Iulia population has accessed the service, generating more than 1 TB of data in 30 minutes' sessions, notes Orange in the release.