The picturesque city of Porto, Portugal, that has been one of the core cities of SynchroniCity was the location for the final review of the project from 4 to 5 February 2020. More than 50 partners joined the review to support the project one last time and showcase the work that has been done in the project in front of the reviewers, project officers and the rest of the partners. Within the past year, 50 services were deployed in 21 cities by 16 pilot groups, validating the need for a digital single market. The programme for the review included presentations from the cities, the three pilots RainBrain, NoiseAbility and Real-time Traffic Data and also a technical demo session that showcased the technical architecture that made SynchroniCity succeed as a project.

A Global Market

SynchroniCity was one of the European IoT Large-Scale Pilots (LSP) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and the aim of the project was to open up a global market for IoT and AI-enabled services for cities and communities.

"SynchroniCity addressed one crucial challenge: how can IoT and AI technologies underpin massive political and financial commitments to solving societal issues if they can’t be implemented in a complex reality? Using the needs of cities and communities as a guide, the OASC Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms have now been shown to concretely deliver a market at scale – cities are coming together and companies are ready to provide. National and international leaders and regulators can – and must – now pursue this path to a prosperous, sustainable and inclusive future for everyone," Martin Brynskov, coordinator of SynchroniCity explained.

In this video you can learn more about SynchroniCity and the common technical ground that is fundamental for the project built on the OASC Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms.

Paving the Way Forward

Porto was not only the location for the final review. The Cities Forum organised by the European Commission also took place in Porto this year from 30 to 31 January. A full session focusing on the Join, Boost, Sustain declaration was part of the programme. SynchroniCity has been one of the sources for inspiration for the movement and therefore everything came together in Porto. The scale-up movement is an opportunity to take the work done in SynchroniCity further.

"Co-create with fellow cities, communities, citizens. Encourage use of MIMs. Spread the OASC and SynchroniCity movement. You will have contributed to the birth of a new market." Olavi Luotonen, Programme Officer, EC, DG CONNECT said.

SynchroniCity has been an important part of our project portfolio in the Centre for Digital Transformation in Cities and Communities the past three years, but our great H2020 flagship has sailed and is now ready to enter the great ocean with OASC. We are already working on several project applications, where the learnings from SynchroniCity will be an integral part.