Cesar Miralles, CEO of Red.es (Red.es is the public corporate entity attached to the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of Spain) interviewed at the FI-WARE Smart Cities event in Santander, October 2013.

Miralles spoke about Smart Cities, Open Data, Internet of things… and FI-WARE. Here you may find a transcription of the interview and the video. 

How important are Smart cities in the current context?
CESAR MIRALLES: The importance of Smart Cities is huge. Why? Because cities will suffer increasing demographic pressure and, therefore, the public administration and the cities themselves must adapt and improve technology to enable them to manage public services more efficiently and, above all, to improve the quality of life of their citizens. I think this is one of the objectives of any city and of information and communication technologies, facilitate and enable cities to provide their citizens with better services.

How should institutions support these kinds of projects?
CÉSAR MIRALLES: Well, they should give all the support necessary. For RED.ES and for the Secretary of State for Telecomunications this is a very important event because, on one hand,  it has to do with  one of the main  objectives of digital policy such as making data more widely available, good governance and transparency. With regards to this, making city data available to its citizens, ranging from very basic public services data like garbage collection,temperature or available parking spaces… an amount of data that is put in the hands of entrepreneurs, of citizens, so they can use them and so companies can develop applications for citizens, companies and public administrations.

How important is Open Data for cities?
CESAR MIRALLES:  It is essential. I believe that the public administration must increasingly seek to work in collaboration with the private sector, companies or entrepreneurs that can help in some way to create applications and to develop services in a public-private partnership. Therefore, everything that has to do with open data and how easily it’s accessible for citizens and entrepreneurs in re-usable formats for the development of these applications is essential for driving the economy, industry and ultimately creating employment.

What role will FI-WARE play in Smart cities in the coming years?
CESAR MIRALLES: The European Commission is taking this project very seriously. The project involves various consortiums and many companies at a European level and we believe that its main quality of technological neutrality, of a being a unique tool open to all kinds of devices,  gives it a special potential to appeal to all types of businesses, all types of and languages and to drive  the development of the industry over time.

I believe that the “Internet of things” is already here, it’s coming. A large amount of data will be handled and transferred from machine to machine. so this platform is a very powerful tool for developers to create services and applications upon. I believe this is a platform with a future, that is worth backing, and RED.ES and the Secretary of State will definitely be supporting it all the way.