IEEE Affiliated Smart Cities

Gilles Betis, chair of the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative

If your city wasn’t selected as an IEEE Core Smart City after the first IEEE Smart Cities initiative call for application this year, or if you didn’t apply, don’t worry! You can easily become an IEEE Affiliated Smart City and join the community!

When we launched the first call for applications in Spring 2014, to select the second and the third cities to become IEEE Core Smart Cities in the IEEE Smart Cities initiative, we never thought that the quality of the applications received would be so impressive. Among the 30 cities that submitted an application, 90% were considered by the reviewers as very good. The Core Cities were selected based on the maturity of the smartification plan, the completeness of stakeholder description and involvement, and also how complementary it was with Guadalajara, the pilot city, from a geographic and thematic point of view.

However, looking at the high quality of responses, and listening to the wish of some of the cities to be involved in the initiative, though not directly supported by IEEE to produce papers, courses and MOOCs, we decided to create a new “Affiliated City” status. Every candidate city whose application was considered as very good received a proposal to become affiliated with the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative.

As for the selected IEEE Core Smart Cities, this affiliated member status will open the following advantages:

Brand the city as an “IEEE Affiliated Smart City” in any official communication
Promote the city’s developments through the IEEE Smart Cities website, with contributed articles or whitepapers to inform the world of plans and progress on the city’s “smartification” process
Get a preferred speaker registration in IEEE Smart Cities Initiative conferences
Suggest expert candidates to join the expert committee
Participate in the kick-off workshops of the core cities selected after the Calls for Application (in Wuxi for Asia, in Trento for Europe for the cities that have already been selected)
Receive complimentary access to IEEE Smart Cities Initiative white papers and a preferred access to the courses being developed by IEEE Core Smart Cities
Get opportunities to join other initiatives (hackathons, working groups, etc.) that are organized by associations or institutions that have close links or that are recommended by IEEE Smart Cities Initiative
As a member of a worldwide network of cities, raise discussions on the smartification topics that are at the heart of the city’s smartification plan

The Affiliated City status is open to any city that can fulfil the following criteria.

The city has a clear and on-going strategy to become a smart city, even if the strategy has not been implemented as yet
There is a group of IEEE local members that are keen to act as a relay and as local animators of the initiative
There are universities, local industries, city service providers that accept to be involved and active in the initiative
The city has identified the most relevant and current smartification themes of interest they want to focus on
There are some locally-based experts that can join the expert network group

Some cities covering an identical living area, a contiguous conurbation, where people have their daily activities, can be also candidates for selected affiliated cities, provided that their on-going plans for urban development cover all the areas, and that the different territorial governances agree to be involved. Applications supported by regional governance bodies may be also considered.

Naturally, IEEE Affiliated Smart Cities will be able to participate in the next call for application and become a future selected IEEE Core Smart Cities. By the communication with other members and the understanding of the work of the selected core cities, becoming an affiliated city might be a good way to improve the chances to be selected as one of the next core cities.

Application to become an IEEE Affiliated Smart Cities is not complicated and is free of charge. Municipalities just need to fill in an application form, very similar to those submitted during the first call for applications. If you have already answered the last call and if you have been solicited to become affiliate, you have already done the job. We will just need to review and homogenise the data you already provided to populate the dedicated page on our web site that will be dedicated to each affiliated city. We will need also to add any web link you may wish to provide to complement initial information.

Click this link to access and complete the necessary application form: IEEE Smart Cities Initiative Affiliated City Application (PDF, 256 KB)

Gilles Betis leads the Urban Life and Mobility action line of EIT ICT Labs (http://www.eitictlabs.eu/innovation-areas/urban-life-and-mobility/) and is chair of the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative, and member of the French IEEE Section, in Region 8. As an engineer in Thales, during more than 20 years, Gilles has been involved in the design of complex systems in IT transportation systems. Holding positions of product line manager, marketing manager and solution leader, he has been constantly involved with prospective, innovation and product design matters. Through a holistic and systemic approach, he always linked up emerging behaviours and societal needs to innovative technological solutions. Gilles is an Engineer graduated in 1987 from Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité, France.