About ICOS : A Community for Software on Intelligent / Smart Cities

ICOS is a community of software developers,  planners, engineers, and users working in the field of intelligent / smart cities.

Who can participate

ICOS is addressed to anyone interested on intelligent / smart cities development and looks for applications and solutions which have been successfully implemented in other cities, mainly open source applications.

  • In the technology supply side, it is addressed to developers wishing to disseminate the applications and solutions they have created.
  • In the demand side, ICOS is addressed to city authorities, infrastructure and utilities managers, city stakeholders wishing to use smart city solutions in order to increase the competitiveness, cohesion, and sustainability of the city.

There is a stack of available technologies and solutions for intelligent cities, which any city planning authority has to take into account.

Benefits

The continuous evolution of web technologies from the static Web to the Social Web, the Real-Time Web, the Semantic Web, and eventually the Intelligent Web in the future, has widen substantially the options for constructing the digital space of cities. An increasingly complex landscape of technologies, applications, data, and e-services is now offered. How to manage this complexity has become a key issue for most city authorities; and how retaining the value of investments within short cycles of innovation as each wave of web technologies eventually makes the previous digital solutions quickly obsolete.

Open source software for intelligent cities is a valuable source of applications and solutions offered within a culture of sharing and reusing software.

“Share more – Develop less” is about the exchange of applications among city authorities, the creation of communities of non-trading solutions, sharing and exchanging application software. This goes together with the use of free open source software and participation in FOSS communities. Open source is ideal for city authorities because as they don’t compete on software development and don’t create advantages on proprietary software.

Use existing software, re-use software, spend less and proceed by small steps, minimize investments, is a safer way to deal with software. Develop applications from scratch should be the last resort, in case that no other solution is available.

About URENIO Research

URENIO Research has created ICOS Community in order to promote the adoption of open source solutions for Smart / Intelligent cities. URENIO is a university laboratory for the promotion of research and supply of scientific and technological services. URENIO is part of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

URENIO’s current research emphasis is on intelligent cities and regions. In particular:

  • Innovation ecosystems development and governance: Development, assessment and planning of innovative agglomerations, innovation clusters, technology districts, technopoles, science and technology parks, innovation centres and incubators.
  • Innovation strategy development: Knowledge-based urban and regional strategic planning. Management of regional systems of innovation. Regional innovation strategies, RIS, RITTS, and RIS-3 strategies. Measuring and benchmarking of innovation performance.
  • Intelligent cities / smart cities: Planning and development of intelligent clusters and districts. Intelligent city strategies and applications. Living Labs for applications and solutions development. Web platforms for collective intelligence, technology transfer, collaborative new product development, and digital marketplaces. User-driven innovation ecosystems and future Internet technologies.

Visit URENIO website