Barcelona, July 22th 2014. – Cisco and Barcelona City Council today announced plans to open a Cisco Global IoE Innovation Center in Barcelona. The Innovation Center will provide a platform for research, technological development and new market opportunities related to the Internet of Everything for smart cities.
The new 1,720 SQM Cisco center will be located at Ca l'Alier, a 19th century heritage building at the core of the 22@Barcelona district, as part of the new Smart City Campus.
Based on its current plans, from 2015 to 2020, Cisco intends to invest close to $30 million, in the facilities' restoration, innovation lab, IT equipment, and talent acquisition primarily in engineering, application development and research.
Key Highlights
- The IoE Innovation Center, slated to open in summer 2016, will be one of five Cisco sites focused on IoE and its market opportunities around the globe, including the current centers in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Songdo (South Korea) and two more that are under development in Germany and Canada.
- As a global innovation hub providing a space where Cisco may team with customers, partners, start-ups, governments and research bodies and academia, the center will host two kinds of innovation activities:
- An IoE Innovation lab to design new services and solutions for cities that are in the early stages of developing urban services (smart parking, smart lighting, location-based analytics, etc.), energy management, safety and security and cloud exchange.
- A live showcase area for Cisco solutions, including Smart+Connected Communities' solutions, demonstrating their practical implementation and ability to improve citizens' quality of life.
- Cisco´s decision to open an IoE Innovation Center in Barcelona reflects the city's commitment to innovation and sharing these innovations with other cities, as it continues to serve as a worldwide lighthouse in smart cities services and solutions. In addition, Barcelona has a strong technological, academic and research community, and serves as an open hub for entrepreneurial business development.
- The Innovation Center will help private and public companies understand how to best generate the value from the Internet of Everything, the next phase of the Internet´s development which carries an estimated a $19 trillion global value creation opportunity in increased revenue, decreased costs, business process improvement and innovative urban services creation by 2022.
Supporting quotes:
- Xavier Trías, Barcelona City Mayor:
"Barcelona has become a worldwide reference smart city. It's the Mobile Worldwide Capital and in 2014 has been appointed as the Innovation European Capital. Both the new Center of Innovation located in the Smart City Campus and the strong Cisco commitment with our city, will help us to reinforce our bet on a new model of economical growth based on technology, urban innovation and advanced services, improving the wellness and the quality of people life."
- Anil Menon, president Smart+Connected Communities and Cisco deputy chief globalization officer:
"Global IoE innovation centers -like the one just announced for Barcelona- will support customers, partners, start-ups, governments, research bodies and academia. These centers represent powerful hubs capable of galvanizing innovative thinking into influential new strategies for defining and building the next iteration of our cities and of our world. For instance, as urban services become connected within cities, unprecedented economic opportunities will follow –leading to a new globalized urban services industry. By leveraging Internet-of-Everything approaches, this global marketplace unveils great opportunity for innovation – new ways to share information, to extend learning, to distribute expertise and resources, to accommodate need and address challenges."
- Jordi Botifoll, president Latin American, senior vice president for America and Barcelona executive sponsor:
"ICT technologies, and particularly IoE, are poised to play a decisive role in urban transformation, sustainable economic development and public services, resulting in an increased quality of life to their citizens as well as to cities overall competitiveness and ability to attract talent and investments. This global innovation center in Barcelona will help to bring up and demonstrate new solutions in such critical areas for cities as parking management, energy efficiency, safety and security and new communications architectures which will shape up the way cities are managed and interact with their citizens in the coming years."
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