Last month, Miguel Ángel Gallardo Miranda, the Mayor of Villanueva de la Serena in Badajoz, Spain, Guillermo Santamaría, Director of Telefónica Extremadura, and Juanjo Hierro, CFO of the FIWARE Foundation, presented ‘Smart Province’, a program that aims to bridge the gap between rural and urban areas by introducing the technological tools used in Smart Cities to towns with less than 20,000 inhabitants.

Its implementation would be an important step forward in terms of the intelligent management of public services in smaller towns and cities in the province. The Province of Badajoz has stated that small towns within the region could be more sustainable and benefit from a better quality of life if they were to follow in the footsteps of their larger counterparts. The objective of the Smart Province project, which is to be long-term project, is therefore to eliminate the current divide between rural and urban areas, which will require a change in mentality from cities and citizens alike.

The platform, which is based on FIWARE standards, will focus on three main areas.

• Water Cycle Management: Giving towns an insight into issues, such as water quality, leak detection, and sanitation.
• Waste Management: Helping to detect how full waste containers are, but also controlling the collection of waste by providing data on its volume and weight. This information, in addition to patterns regarding the generation of waste by citizens, can help towns optimize their waste collecting route planning.
• Public Lighting Management: Focussing on consumption and hours of operation, as well as the detection of issues.

According to FIWARE Foundation CFO, Juanjo Hierro, the Province of Badajoz is setting a good example by leading an innovative initiative that could inspire other regions to follow.