Expo 2015 and Telecom Italia, in collaboration with the magazine Domus, have announced “Digital Ideas for Expo City 2015”, a competition designed to garner new planning and design ideas for innovative digital technology solutions for the city and the home which can have a positive impact on the urban environment and on people's lives. The three top projects will hopefully be developed as part of the Expo Milano 2015 Digital Smart City, the intelligent, digitalized and sustainable city that Telecom Italia, Global Service Partner to the World Exposition, will help to create.
The initiative was presented today at the second Expovisions meeting, a series of encounters organized by Expo 2015 and Telecom Italia for the run up to 2015 which, with the participation of leading names from the worlds of culture and technology, hope to stimulate new thinking and suggestions to improve the quality of life. Speaking at the meeting, entitled “Digital for Life. Solutions for a Smarter World”, held at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, were Giuseppe Sala, CEO Expo 2015, Marco Patuano, COO Telecom Italia, Joseph Grima, Director of Domus, Dan Hill, CEO Fabrica and Italo Rota, internationally renowned architect from Studio Italo Rota & Partners.
Digital Ideas for Expo City 2015 aims to encourage engineering and design students and professionals to present ideas on the application of new digital technologies to urban and domestic environments which can make life in the city more intelligent, efficient and sustainable. Specifically, the proposals should foresee the use of at least one Telecom Italia component from the Italian Cloud IT solutions (the range of computing resources made available by broadband connectivity) and NFC (Near Field Communication), a short-range radio frequency technology which allows devices to talk to each other across relatively short distances.
The ideas should target the following themes: Smart City, with the possible use of Digital Islands, multi-service areas within the urban fabric designed to act as “open containers” for apps and advanced tech services such as top-up points, mobile payments and tourist information; Mobile Applications, the set of applications developed for Expo Milano 2015 to enable real and virtual visitors to enjoy the event in an exciting and engaging way; Digital Home & Office + Smart School, digital services for the monitoring and automated management of private homes and office buildings plus solutions for the computerisation of schools.
Proposals may be entered via the web site www.domusweb.it beginning today until 30 August 2013, and will be judged by a high profile jury composed of Nicola di Battista (architect and lecturer in architectural design at the University of Cagliari), Joseph Grima (Director Domus), Marco Patuano (COO Telecom Italia), Carlo Ratti (lecturer at MIT Boston), Franco Regis (Vice President Energy Purchase & Management, Telecom Italia), Italo Rota (architect, Studio Italo Rota & Partners) and Giuseppe Sala (CEO Expo 2015).
“To rethink the city starting from the home and the workplace, urban spaces which we inhabit every day or in which we would like to live thanks to the use of new technologies: this is the challenge we are launching today with the aim of enriching the roadmap towards the Expo 2015 Digital Smart City,” said Marco Patuano, COO of Telecom Italia. “We want to share this opportunity to contribute to the country's development and the birth of a new culture, based on a recognition of the role of technological innovation as an enabling factor for a more intelligent and sustainable world. This is why we are inviting the best talent in Italy and abroad to provide a concrete input through their ideas to the creation of the city of the future.”
“Expo Milano 2015 needs fresh, cutting edge ideas to create a truly Smart City of the future, a model that can be replicated in towns and cities everywhere,” explained Giuseppe Sala, CEO Expo 2015 S.p.A. “This calls for an original, innovative and intelligent approach, a fresh look at the world through the eyes of the young. Through the Expo 2015 Digital Smart City project we wish to attract technological proposals and applications that can improve every day life in the places where we work, play and pursue our personal interests. The World Expo offers the finest entrepreneurial minds a unique opportunity to stretch their talents and put them to the test.”
Milan, 5 Apriil 2013
