Following FIWARE’s participation at Global City Team Challenge workshops in New York last week, a new wave of projects are being designed by cities around the world to make use of the FIWARE platform.

The Global City Team Challenge – being led by the US Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology — is an initiative designed to advance the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city environment. On November 12 and 13, smart cities teams from around the world met in Gaithersburg, Maryland to begin planning new projects that will culminate in a series of launches at the GCTC Expo in June 2016.

Amongst the 350-400 participants attending, FIWARE was considered with great interest. In particular, two demonstration projects built on the FIWARE platform were keenly observed by participants. These projects created by startups in Portugal and Italy using FIWARE included a real-time open data system sharing details on pollution, traffic, and other environment variables, and a car sharing tool that has so far been downloaded over 45,000 times. Both will be showcased in the upcoming Smart Cities Expo and World Congress in Barcelona on 17 – 20 November.

Around 70-80 participants attended a specific FIWARE workshop on building projects using the platform and FIWARE is already being mentioned explicitly as the platform in which these projects want to build upon.

The FIWARE smart city open platform is one of the most advanced and open infrastructure models in the world, allowing city project managers to immediately start building workable solutions that will enable a new wave of smart city projects. These new projects are expected to enhance civic engagement, improve management of finite urban resources, make our cities more liveable, and reduce inequality.

Following the interest at the Global Cities Team Challenge last week, FIWARE will be making a series of further announcements at Smart City Expo and World Congress on 17 – 19 November in conjunction with project partners. These announcements will demonstrate several of the smart city projects already available to citizens including in Porto (Portugal), Amersfoort, Eindhoven, Enschede, Rotterdam and Utrecht (The Netherlands), Sevilla (Spain), and Sant-Quentin (France).

As the end of the year approaches, the world’s smart city infrastructure is in its most advanced stage ever, with new partnerships emerging (including the Open and Agile Smart Cities initiative and with key business industry associations) that will enable a new wave of civic businesses to leverage the platform and build a new generation of smart city solutions. A full list of new cities signing up to join FIWARE’s partnership with Open and Agile Smart Cities will be made on Wednesday at the UK Pavilion at Smart City Expo, and will highlight new city partnerships including with Bristol and Manchester, both known as for their leadership in the UK for smart cities projects. As an open platform, FIWARE is enabling entrepreneurs and city-based businesses to enter and compete in this emerging market and build solutions that are citizen-centric and solve real city problems.