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Terça-Feira, 19 de Dezembro de 2017

Fire prevention solution implemented in Cascais, the first experimental city for start-ups

Smart Forest was one of the winning projects of Big Smart Cities, the Vodafone and Ericsson entrepreneurship competition
  • The prize offered the opportunity to test the project in the municipality
  • Start-up will install IoT sensors at Quinta do Pisão

The Smart Forest start-up, a fire prevention solution, started a pilot project in Cascais this weekend by installing five sensors in Quinta do Pisão. Access to the municipality of Cascais as an experimental city for start-ups was ensured after Smart Forest was voted one of the three winning ideas in this year’s edition of Big Smart Cities, an entrepreneurship and innovation competition promoted by Vodafone Power Lab and Ericsson, the final of which was held in July.

Following the installation of IoT sensors at Quinta do Pisão, Smart Forest will gather critical information for fire prevention, including carbon dioxide and humidity levels, wind strength and direction. Once captured, these data are transmitted via Vodafone’s mobile network to a gateway which uses an artificial intelligence system to analyse and interpret the information, and triggers alerts in the event of a risk of fire.

The implementation of a pilot in a real environment is therefore essential for Smart Forest to be able to develop its project, which may come to play a key role in fire prevention in the future. It was, in fact, the objective of the 5th Big Smart Cities to add this experimentation phase for the first time this year.

Created with the aim of discovering and supporting technology-based business ideas that can improve the daily lives of those who live in, visit or work in major urban centres, over past editions of BIG Smart Cities it has become increasingly clear that there is the need to create a bridge between start-ups and cities to facilitate the implementation of these solutions. Cascais put itself forward to host this experiment, opening the doors of its municipality to accommodate the very wide range of smart solutions by the winning start-ups in this competition.

The strategy adopted in recent years and the resulting initiatives that have been developed, particularly in terms of mobility, energy efficiency and waste management, make Cascais a good example of what a smart city could look like. This is also a concern shared by Vodafone and Ericsson, who want to support young Portuguese entrepreneurs and contribute to creating the smart cities of the future.