DESCRIPTION 

It’s been more than 20 years since the initial appearance of the term smart city (SC) in the literature. The SC scope ranges and it is being seen from different perspectives by alternative actors with quite competitive interests. In contextual terms, the SC is being transformed to a service-oriented ecosystem; in terms of policy and objectives the SC mostly deals with sustainable challenges and urban growth; in terms of artefacts, all the emerging technologies are being combined or struggle to play an extensive role in SC; while in terms of people, skills and social engagement are being encouraged. However, practice shows that the SC scope has a limited application, since it is mostly being capitalized for utility upgrades or for urban renovation, while Internet-of-Things (IoT)-readiness enables real-time city monitoring. This project will study the fact that "the mission of SC seems to have been accomplished": SC are being transformed to hubs that collect, process and transmit data and services; bring together people for co-design; or control material flows. This project has several aims: to define the role and of the SC-as-a-hub (SCHub) operation, which can standardize and control all these flows across the city; to design the logical and physical architecture of the SCHub; to develop and test a software prototype of the SCHub in a real smart city; to define and submit a specifications' document for the SCHub to an international or national standardization body; to define a business model for the SCHub capitalization; to disseminate the project with scientific publications and events.

PARTNERS

• Coordinator – University of Thessaly, Greece (https://www.uth.gr )
• Partner – Maynooth Univeristy, Ireland (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/)
• Partner – University of Siegen, Germany (https://www.uni-siegen.de/)
• Partner – Property Management And Development Company (TALOS) (https://talos.uth.gr/)