TNW And Vodafone Are Working To Build A Smart-city In Just Six Months

Building a smart city requires cooperation from all the stakeholders. All the stakeholders primarily include governmental institutions, and then the small businesses, and large enterprises. But, all the stakeholders generally fight with municipalities over local taxes. For all this, municipalities must assure that cities will remain cities for everyone, and not tech hubs with unaffordable housing. To solve this fight, TNW and Vodafone have joined this. They will harmonize the institutions, startups, and corporations. For building smart cities, both the companies have created a plan together that aims to create concrete IoT solutions for cities in just six months. Before setting up the program, it is important to understand what actually means a “smart city” and “IoT solutions”.

Smart Cities and Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) means when the devices like sensors, vehicles, cameras, and home appliances will be connect to the Internet. By connecting these devices to the internet, the data can be exchanged between devices and humans. In a smart city, such devices are used to collect the data and manage the city more efficiently. Some examples of smart cities are Amsterdam, Singapore, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. In the future, we will manage the entire country with such devices. Hence, all cities will be transformed into smart cities which are advanced and sustainable. 10 Different organizations, institutions, and corporations have joined the program to provide challenges.

Here are 10 different challenges Propose by Them

The Dutch police want to find a way by which citizens could measure the surface water quality in their neighborhoods to avoid environmental crime. Heineken wants a low-cost tracking solution for their crates of beer. Damen, a shipbuilding company does the business of autonomous vessels. It wants to find ways to “upgrade” fleets with smart sensors and other tracking devices. Vitens, a drinking water company wants to find solutions to track the quality of water right from production plants to the customers. Efteling, a Dutch theme park, wants predictive maintenance solutions to prevent downtime of their roller coasters.

Grid operator Stein wants to find an effective way by which we can identify electricity usage that is fraud and illegal electricity consumption. Facilicom, a facility services provider, wants to have smart wheelchairs at the airport to improve the airport. The Economic Board Utrecht, which comprises of scientists, entrepreneurs, and public officials working on the economic growth of the Utrecht area, wants to monitor health information in the situation at home in order to minimize the transport time in case of medical emergencies.

A leading supplier of LPG, SHV energy, wants a smart technology to create the gas cylinders in the future. Jaarbeurs, an exhibition and convention center in Utrecht, wants to provide a seamless experience to the visitors. So, it is not possible for each organization to create smart cities on their own. Teaming up is necessary. They are looking for the best startups for innovative solutions to meet their challenges.

TNW and Vodafone Program

On May 24, a TNW Conference which was in Amsterdam. The Vodafone TNW IoT challenge will hit there. All the partners will attend and discuss their projects. Then, TNW and Vodafone will try to find out the best startups to solve different challenges between June and August. All the solutions will be present to the partners in September. Partners and startups will work together on a proof of concept in October and November. This proof of concept will be presented in December.

So, in the entire program, Vodafone and TNW will provide the best startups with technical support to the partners. It will be a great business opportunity for both the partners and the startups. While, the program will have a social impact on the cities, creating smart cities. IoT can create solutions to make day-to-day life easy.