On the second day of the 2017 TRON Show, CPaaS.io organized the international session “Stakeholder Summit on Future Cities Created by the IoT: EU-Japan CPaaS.io Project”. After an introduction by the project coordinators, Ken Sakamura and Stephan Haller, a representative of each stakeholder city gave a short presentation about their city’s smart city strategy and activities:

• Amsterdam: Joshua Serrão (Innovation Officer, Chief Technology Office of Amsterdam)
• Sapporo: Motoi Ichihashi (Director, ICT Strategy Promotion, City of Sapporo)
• Zürich: Michael Grüebler (Head of Services at the Statistical Office of the City of Zurich), via video
• Tokyo: Kyoko Kubara (Senior Director, Information and Communications Planning Division, Bureau of General Affairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Government)
• Murcia: José Guillén Parra (Deputy Mayor for Modernization of the Administration, Urban Quality and Participation, City of Murcia) and Antonio Skarmeta (University of Murcia, Technical Coordinator of Murcia’s Smart City initiative MiMurcia)
• Yokosuka: Isao Uenodan (Director, Business Attraction and Industrial Promotion Division, Economic Department, City of Yokosuka)

After a short break, some points were discussed in more detail in a 60-minute panel discussion that also included questions from the audience. Several things became clear in the presentations as well as the discussion. While the different cities are at a different maturity level regarding their smart city activities, all agreed about the value and the necessity of an open platform as CPaaS.io is developing. Secondly, smart city is about more than just technology or IoT. Improving the quality of life of its citizens, and involving citizens in the innovation and city renewal processes are important drivers. The role of technology is to support this, but hardly an end in itself. And finally, opportunities to transfer learnings from one use case to others should be realized – for example regarding public transportation or water management.

For more details on the workshop result, please consult the workshop report.

At TRON Show 2017, the project received further visibility in the opening session by Ken Sakamura, including a short video, and was also presented at the exhibition booths of YRP UNL and the University of Tokyo (Digital Signage). Digital Signage was also shown to Japan’s Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Ms. Seiko Noda, when Ken Sakamura guided her through the exhibition area.

Update (April 4, 2018): A report about this workshop was recently published in Volume 169 of TRONWARE magazine.  A .pdf of this article can be downloaded here, either the original Japanese version or the English translation.

The participants of the City Stakeholder Workshop at the CPaaS.io booth. From left to right: Antonio Skarmeta (Murcia), Motoi Ichihashi (Sapporo), Ken Sakamura (Coordinator, YRP), José Guillén (Murcia), Kyoko Kubara (Tokyo), Stephan Haller (Coordinator, BFH), Joshua Serrão (Amsterdam), Isao Uenodan (Yokosuka)