Today, March 17th, it is a special day for FI-WARE because the city of Seville inaugurates one of the first nodes that will considerably expand the computing capacity of FI-Lab, the open innovation environment where developers can experiment with FI-WARE technologies and the ecosystem where entrepreneurs can get in touch with potential investors and clients.

You can download a Press Kit here.

The inauguration of this first node (data-center) represents the initial stages of FI-Lab’s expansion all over Europe. A first phase of this expansion will consist in the connection of a series of data centers located in Spain operated by Red.es (in the cities of Seville, Malaga, Las Palmas and Santander).  The expansion of the computing capacity provided by the FI-Lab datacenter located in Seville has been achieved thanks to an agreement signed between the Seville city council and Red.es.

Following this, FI-Lab will expand throughout Europe creating a powerful network of datacenters in other regions that have joined forces to promote the adoption of FI-WARE as an open standard. The FI-PPP, via the XiFi project, launched an Open Call to identify different entities that provide and operate new data centers in Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic and other countries in Europe, further expanding FI-Lab’s computing capacity.

FI-Lab also allows cities, administrations, companies and other organizations to upload open data that may help entrepreneurs to develop innovative applications. So far, ​​arrangements have already been made for a large number of cities to publish open data through FI-Lab, answering the call made by European Commissioner Neelie Kroes made when she launched the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities, back in September 2013.  This way, third parties can develop applications based on FI-WARE that enable a more efficient management of municipal services or bring innovative services that are useful to citizens.  The initial set of cities include Sevilla, Málaga, Santander, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Valencia, Trento, Torino, Espoo or Lisbon.

2014 is a key year for the adoption of the FI-WARE platform by the wide community of developers, including SMEs and entrepreneurs. Throughout the year, the FI-PPP will aim to promote the innovation and development of the Future Internet in Europe through the funding of companies and entrepreneurs.

One hundred million Euros will be destined to fund companies and entrepreneurs who develop applications based on FI-WARE during the final months of 2014 and 2015, through grants given by the European Commission.  The initiative will benefit more than 1,000 companies that will be selected through an open call process.  Each of the selected SMEs may receive funding in the order of €50,000 to €150,000.

In the meantime, FI-WARE has recently announced the release of two new challenges that will reward the best applications developed on the platform with more than €340,000. One that will award applications that help to promote initiatives that benefit society in areas such as education, health or inclusion with the so called “Smart Society” Challenge. Another one witll award different open-themed applications that make the best use of FI-WARE technologies with the “FI-WARE Excellence” Challenge.

More info?  Download the press kit that contains the Press Release along with extra information and audiovisual materials. 

Don’t miss FI-WARE and Entrepreneurship, a collection of interviews done at the ICT 2013 – Digital Agenda for Europe event in Vilnius, Lithuania, 2013. Several points of views on Entrepreneurship, Cloud, Big Data, IoT, Smart Cities, the present and the future of Europe in the digital market… and the ways the European Commission is seeking to address them through FI-WARE and FI-LAB.