FiWare

Torino Wireless

Torino Wireless was established in 2003 as a wide partnership between public and private regional and national actors. The foundation is the technological coordinator of the city of Turin and played a key role in the development of Torino’s Smart city project. In addition, Torino Wireless manages the Regional Innovation Cluster on ICT and Multimedia and the National Technology Cluster for Smart Communities, providing innovation-related services to both companies and public stakeholders, with a special focus on complex projects related to Smart City.

At the European Union level, Torino Wireless acts as a research center and participates with different roles in Research, Innovation, Coordination and Support projects.

Goals and challenges

Torino Wireless offers its services to both business and public organizations. It supports local companies to use technology as strategic asset to increase their competitiveness while, at the same time, it also offers support to public institutions and organization in the development of complex projects in the field of Smart cities.

Torino Wireless represents a bridge between private and public actors, fostering dialogue and cooperation through different activities such as:

• Scenario analysis (market and industry) and business opportunity identification

• Cluster management and interaction with technology based companies

• Call for proposals’ support activities for companies that want to participate in European, Italian or regional calls

• Complex project management related to Smart City, according to the European and Italian (national and regional) policies

• Assistance in networking and business internationalization.

The choice of FIWARE

At the end of 2013 Telecom Italia, an important Italian FIWARE sponsor, offered the city of Turin the chance to enter the program as a pilot city.  During the same year Turin had developed its Master Plan for Turin Smart City, defining priorities and projects including mobility, energy, e-government, social inclusion, life and health.

FIWARE represented a good match with the city’s Master Plan, giving the chance for a further develop. In particular, the FIWARE open technology represented a great opportunity for developing new services and its focus on open data was in line with the goals of the city’s Master Plan.

The participation in FIWARE launched a partnership involving three important stakeholders:

• The city of Turin, including political actors (the departments dealing, respectively, with the issues connected to the Smart city and Security) and technical experts (CTOs and the head of the local police force)

• Torino Wireless, with the role of technological manager and coordinator

• University Politecnico of Turing, with the role of developer.

The use of FIWARE technology

The FIWARE project developed by the city of Turin focused on the issue of security as perceived by citizens. The data selected to measure it are those regarding warnings or complaints collected by the local police contact centers about disturbances, disruptive behaviors and damages to public urban properties..

The App developed with the FIWARE technology organizes and analyses the data, providing a dashboard which geo-localizes critical activities on a city map. The App sends real time notifications to the stakeholders about the security issues and also provides them with updated statistics.

The Generic Enablers deployed in the App are:

Data Visualization – Spago BI for the dashboard. This GE allows to get insights on data and turn them into actionable knowledge for effective decision-making processes thanks to reporting and charting tools. In addition, its modular approach, scalable architecture and open standards ensure easy customization and the development of user-friendly solutions.

Configuration Manager – Orion Context Broker managing the notifications.

Benefits and accoplishments

The Turin FIWARE allowed the creation of a fruitful partnership among different stakeholders: political actors, technical experts and education institutions. In addition, this partnership allowed for the accomplishment of an important goal. The data employed by the App used to be exclusive property of the police force and of the Department for Urban Security. The FIWARE project laid the conditions for the release of these data, which are now part of the Open Database of the city.

The App was presented to the big public during both FIWARE and third parties events. The feedbacks collected in these occasions were extremely positive, with great appreciation of the App from the citizens as an innovative tool for immediate and simplified interactions between the citizens and the institutions.

As a key partner in the project, Torino Wireless was able to access the wide network of FIWARE members, getting in touch with other organizations collaborating in Smart cities project. Thanks to the network, the foundation was able to increase its visibility at the international level and it also established relationships aimed at mutual knowledge transfer and exchange of experience.