The Insight Centre, Silicon Valley and the Galway Smart City

The Insight Centre for Data Analytics based at NUI Galway and supported by Science Foundation Ireland will launch a new “Smart City” project for Galway City in partnership with Silicon Valley, CA, USA based Company, DEW Mobility at the Internet of Things summer School in NUI Galway on Tuesday 13th September.

The Galway Smart City: Light Pollution, Air Quality and Noise Monitoring project which was successful against stiff competition from across the world was accepted as part of the Global City Team Challenge (GCTC) launched in 2015 by US Ignite and the US National Institute for Standards and Technologies (NIST) and is being developed in partnership with Silicon Valley, CA, USA based Company, DEW Mobility.

According to project leader Dr Martin Serrano of Insight at NUI Galway, “This project adds an international dimension to Irish-based IoT expertise and is a recognition of the success of Irish-based scientists in the development of “Smart City” data solutions and particularly “Smart City” best practices for transforming open source knowledge into industrial solutions”.

“We are very proud to participate in this project involving Galway City Council in the West of Ireland, supported by a Silicon Valley, CA, USA based Company, DEW Mobility and the Insight Centre for Data Analytics to drive the technical design and development based on our scientific trajectory and expertise on smart technologies and the Internet of Things”, Dr Serrano added.

Dr Martin Serrano and former Mayor of Galway, Niall Ó Brolcháin from Insight participated in the GCTC kick-off event in Austin, Texas, USA for this project together with other selected Smart City teams from many parts of the world to demonstrate their solutions and plans to promote the best smart city practices. The endorsement of NIST and US Ignite, ensures that best practice from Irish-based smart city architects and scientists will position Ireland at the very highest international level in terms of creating Smart City solutions and initiatives.

In the context of Global Initiatives for Smart City Solutions to identify best practices, emerging technologies and to motivate knowledge transfer to industry and to promote open source solutions to the city.

Dr Serrano said, “The GCTC is an effort to bring together two key groups—communities with challenges and innovators with the technology to overcome them. The GCTC was announced at the White House Smart Cities Forum as part of the US Administration’s New Smart City initiative on Sept. 14, 2015.”

Technically led by the Insight Centre for Data Analytics the project focuses on the design of external monitoring for air quality, incidence of light pollution, glare and spillage into the surrounding environment and noise levels giving due regard to the commercial and residential amenities of surrounding areas.

The core technology proposed behind this project is VITAL-OS, which is the open platform for connecting city data and analysing the performance of IoT related smart city systems and is promoted as the reference Operating System for Connecting Smart Cities, VITAL is a European funded project that follows the principles of the Open Agile Smart Cities (OASC) initiative.