Panama City, Panama, April 9, 2015. - During the Summit of the Americas, Cisco and Panama City announce their plans to work together to turn Panama City into a smart city using Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities solutions. With this aim, Mayor Jose Blandon Figueroa signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cisco to formalize this collaboration and establish future steps.

Under the agreement, Cisco will share global best practices in smart cities and, together with Panama City, identify areas of collaboration to transform the citizen experience through initiatives in the areas of city infrastructure management (CIM), telecommunications and urban services.

"A city is smart if can solve the basic problems of those living in it, if it guarantees sustainable human development. Having technology, thousands of sensors everywhere and two phones per person, does not make a smart city if all that technology is not focused on ensuring better living conditions for people with equity. This agreement with Cisco aims to improve the quality of life of Panamanians", said Mayor Jose Blandon Figueroa.

“Countries, cities, industries and businesses around the globe are becoming digital. They recognize the tremendous opportunity the next wave of the Internet - the Internet of Everything - presents for new revenue streams, better customer and citizen experiences, and new operational models to deliver value. We are very glad to work with Panama City and its leaders,” said Jordi Botifoll, president of Cisco Latin America.

The areas of collaboration involve the following services:

• City administration: Smart building design, city network platform with multiple connections to city systems, urban command center
• Citizen services: Citizen collaboration platform, connected plaza with multiple technologies
• Street-level urban services: Smart public safety, smart parking, smart traffic, smart lighting, smart waste management, smart environment and others

Cisco is active in more than 90 projects around the world, including those in Barcelona (Spain), Toronto  (Canada), Hamburg (Germany), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Guadalajara (Mexico) and Guayaquil (Ecuador).

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