Intel Labs Europe, Dublin City Council and Trinity College Dublin announce the launch of the 'Sustainable Connected Cities – Dublin’ collaboration

Oct 11, 2012

Lord Mayor of Dublin Naoise Ó Muirí along with Professor  Martin Curley, Vice President Intel Labs, and Director Intel Labs Europe, and Professor  Vinny Cahill, Dean of Research, Trinity College Dublin, launched the ‘Sustainable Connected Cities – Dublin’ collaboration.

The announcement of the innovative collaboration was made at the Intel Ireland Research Conference which took place recently at Croke Park, Dublin and was attended by Seán Sherlock, Minister of State, Department of Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation, who joined the conference to deliver a keynote address on the topic of Research and Innovation in Ireland.

The Sustainable Connected Cities – Dublin collaboration between Intel Labs Europe, Dublin City Council and Trinity College Dublin, is an umbrella programme for a series of collaborations that will see the development and testing of citizen centric services and solutions that further the drive towards delivering sustainable connected cities. 

The innovations delivered through the quadruple helix of interaction between knowledge institutions, enterprises, government and civil society will help set Dublin apart and propel it on its path to become a truly sustainable city. As innovative solutions are developed and validated they will be used to form design patterns which can be exported and replicated to solve similar issues facing cities throughout the world.

With over 50% of the world’s population now living in cities and projections showing this figure growing to more than 70% by 2050, the need for adaptive and responsive infrastructure will be paramount to the capacity, prosperity, sustainability and liveability of our future connected cities.

The build out of smart infrastructures, which will allow cities to intelligently utilise technology to adapt to their environment, will play a central role in the competitiveness of cities in the future and their capacity to grow and support sustainable living.

As part of the Sustainable Connected Cities - Dublin collaboration, Intel Labs Europe, Dublin City Council and Trinity College Dublin are already collaborating on a variety of programmes including City Watch and City Sensing. 

The City Sensing and City Watch programmes combine the use of fixed and mobile sensors to create a real time picture of what happens within the modern urban city environment, for example, providing information on a localised flooding event resulting in disruption to citizens. The mobile sensing component is enabled by a participatory sensing application for use on smart phones and devices allowing citizens of the city itself to become participants in developing technological innovations that will improve their environment, transport systems and local services.

 In addition to these initiatives, the collaborators are working on a number of new projects proposals and are exploring options through the EU Framework Programme 7 and Science Foundation Ireland’s Horizon 2020 agenda.

Speaking at the launch, Lord Mayor of Dublin Naoise Ó Muirí said “Dublin must be relentless in its quest for digital distinction.  Being a digital city benefits us all – citizens, businesses and educators.  Partnership is critical and I welcome this collaboration between Dublin City Council, Intel Labs Europe and Trinity College Dublin.  By working with these collaborations we can make Dublin the Innovation Capital of Europe.”

Professor Martin Curley, Vice President Intel Labs, and Director Intel Labs Europe, added “Through establishing this exciting quadruple helix collaboration between academia, industry, government and citizens, we aim to set Dublin apart as a world leading sustainable connected city. When Dublin’s Services and IT architecture is defined, tested and used to successfully develop solutions and services for citizens we believe that these design patterns are ultimately transferable and can be exported to cities and communities across the world. Central to our collaboration will be the engagement of citizens and comprehension of the challenges they face living within a modern city, throughout the course of our endeavour we will engage with residents through a variety of channels including some of Dublin cities’ progressive programmes such as Your Dublin - Your Voice and Dublinked”.

Welcoming this important collaboration, Professor Vinny Cahill, Dean of Research Trinity College Dublin, said that “Enabling Smart and Sustainable cities is a major research theme for Trinity College that not only offers the promise of improved quality of life and resource usage for citizens, but also represents a major opportunity to deliver economic benefits for Ireland by enabling new export-focused businesses providing products and services for future smart cities. Working with Dublin City and Intel Labs Europe is important to ensuring that our research in this field addresses real problems and has global significance.”