Eight Global Cities Announce Technologies to Meet Challenges for 40 Million Citizens

In a unique global effort, eight cities joined forces with Living Labs Global to present their pressing challenges to the global business and technology community.

Learn more, visit: www.livinglabs-global.com/award

(STOCKHOLM) - Today the cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei announce the winners of the Living Labs Global Award 2011.

The Award presented the major challenges faced by these cities in the coming years, to which 245 companies from 30 countries responded by presenting their solutions. With rapidly growing populations, budget pressures due to the financial crisis and increasing international competition for investment, talent and tourists cities are looking for innovative approaches to remain competitive. Cities represent a major, yet complex market, spending an annual EUR 3.5 trillion in public procurement alone

Today the cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm and Taipei announce eight winning solutions that were selected by 45 international users out of 245 submissions from 30 countries. Winning solutions will now be piloted in the participating cities, to evaluate their impact to meet the challenges.

In a unique global effort, eight cities joined forces with Living Labs Global to present their pressing challenges to the global business and technology community.

Challenges put forward by cities include the need to provide more efficient and sustainable urban services such as lighting using latest LED technologies; to rethink city services in the light of open data and apps developed by interest groups; to overcome media piracy undermining native film industries through digital distribution systems; or the need to provide financing and support to social entrepreneurs in African cities.

The winning solutions are:

City of Barcelona: Citysolver, by Bitcarrier
City of Cape Town:  Venture Capital Cultivator Fund, by PoweredbyVC
City of Eindhoven: Integral Solution for Urban Infrastructures (SIIUR), by bdigital
City of Lagos: Eggup | Sell your films while preventing piracy, by Eggup.com
City of San Francisco: Open Data as a Platform for Citizen Service Delivery, by Socrata Inc.
City of Sant Cugat: Smart Parking for Smart Urban Living, by Worldsensing
City of Stockholm: Spotscout, by Spotscout Inc.
City of Taipei: A+ Care: Smart Autonomous TeleHealth Care Service, by Netown

Winners were announced after an international two-round jury process under auspices of Living Labs Global, a non-profit association based in Copenhagen working with 40 cities and 450 companies around the world to promote service innovation in cities.

The Award Ceremony was attended by 200 participants from 20 countries in Stockholm as part of the Stockholm Summit for Service Innovation in Cities.

The Living Labs Global Award 2011 is a unique global process providing full accountability in the evaluation through independent experts. The Award was carried out in partnership with Oracle Corporation, Farglory and supporting organisations from around the world.

“Today’s announcement provides a significant step forward to solve some of the world’s pressing urban challenges affecting more than 50% of the world’s population.

The winners will now have the opportunity to implement their solutions in real-life environments, and work together with stakeholders in the eight cities to prove their impact.”, says Sascha Haselmayer, General Director of Living Labs Global.

The Living Labs Global Award is an annual process over 8 months in which cities present their challenges and provide guidance to the business and technology community on future investment plans and needs. Solution providers respond by submitting existing technologies as entries for evaluation by an international jury. www.livinglabs-global.com/award

Facts:

More than 557,000 local governments provide services to more than 50% of the world’s population with an annual spending of 3.5 Trillion Euros per year. New technologies can radically improve transport and mobility systems, access to finance, media distribution, social services and other key areas of urban life.

Living Labs Global. a non-profit association based in Copenhagen (Denmark), working with 40 cities and 450 companies and research centres in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas with a mission to open the market for service innovation in cities and overcoming key technology, organisation and trade barriers.

Source: PRESSWIRE