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Terça-Feira, 5 de Julho de 2016

Parqly is the winner of the 4th edition of Big Smart Cities

The Portuguese start-up Parqly is the overall winner of the 4th edition of Big Smart Cities, an entrepreneurship and innovation competition organised by Vodafone and Ericsson.

Designed to solve parking problems in large urban centres, the app will provide information on the most suitable car park for drivers in terms of closeness, price and how full it is. What is more, with Parqly users can even book the intended parking place in advance and pay the parking fee by smartphone.

In addition to the winner, three honourable mentions were also awarded.

  • Vodafone New Generation Networks – Take my Dronie, which allies the already familiar selfies to drone technology, allowing users to take photos and shoot films from the air. It introduces a new concept to the market: “Dronie”;
  • Ericsson Internet of Things – Movtz, technology that transforms any electrical plug into a recharging point for electric vehicles;
  • Audience Award – Ledviser, a wearable device that allows cyclists to indicate in advance their intention to turn or brake, so contributing to reducing accidents involving cyclists.

Created in 2013 to capture technological ideas aimed at improving the daily lives of those who live and work in or visit a city, the 4th edition of Big Smart Cities received the highest number of applications ever, involving over 230 teams. The 20 finalists who yesterday competed for the jury’s recognition were decided by online registration and at various events held in April in Porto, Évora, Coimbra and Lisbon.

There followed a two-month period of pre-acceleration of the finalists’ ideas, with each team enhancing their vision for the cities of the future, in order to make them smarter, more sustainable, and encouraging a better quality of life for their residents, workers and visitors.

With its victory at yesterday’s final at the Thalia Theatre, Parqly will now be incubated at Vodafone Power Lab, Vodafone Portugal’s innovation ‘laboratory’ that supports entrepreneurial projects. In addition, it will travel to Stockholm to visit the head office of Ericsson and its innovation clusters, as well as benefiting from the 10,000 euro prize to begin to give practical effect to its solution to the parking problem in big cities.