Last week, a FIWARE delegation took part to the Brazil-EU Cooperation on Human Smart Cities and FIWARE Workshop organized by the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) on behalf of the the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI),  in Natal (Brazil). The delegation was led by Jesus Villasante, Head of the Net Innovation Unit of DG Connect with the participation of representatives from Telefonica, Engineering and Martel.

The workshop was a great opportunity to get in touch with the growing local FIWARE Ecosystem and the representatives of Brazilian and Rio Grande Norte governments. The Smart City community is very vibrant in Brazil with already seven cities that are part of OASC. The delegation was invited to discuss with the Mayor of Natal on the priorities of the city around social inclusion and other key primary needs of the city, in light of its Smart City strategy. More and more cities in Brazil are looking into smart strategies as a way to pave the sustainable growth of their ecosystem, and FIWARE can certainly play a role in this context.

Several actors are already looking into FIWARE to build smart solutions for Brazilian cities. Kiev Gama, part of the team winning the third prize for Smart City App Hack with Bike Cidadao app, presented ongoing activities in Recife, while the Digital City Institute (Instituto Metrópole Digital – IMD) presented a strategy for the development of Smart services in Natal based on FIWARE technology. IMD plans include the hosting of a FIWARE Lab node in Natal, acting as hub for location innovation community.

During the meeting, the FIWARE Mundus team provided insights on the requirements for setting up a FIWARE Lab node and on the best practices to start developing Smart Applications with FIWARE.

The workshop was also the chance for the Brazilian actors to ask questions to FIWARE industrial players on the recently announced open FIWARE Foundation and how to strengthen EU and Brazil collaboration on FIWARE and Smart Cities.

As result of the workshop, an initial action plan for the development of Smart City initiatives around FIWARE in Brazil was discussed and the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation will define a national wide strategy to support research on Smart Cities.