The city of Skellefteå, in the north of Sweden has become since the end of last year a testing ground for local enterprises keen on trying out their new digital and mobile products and services in a particularly favorable context.

“Sense Smart City” is a project initiated by the small Swedish town of Skellefteå by the Centre for Distance Spanning Technology of the Technical University of Luleå and supported by multiple public and private partners. The objective is ambitious: manage research, encourage experimentation and develop innovative services in the fields of communication and information technology, all part of a sustainable movement to make the city more intelligent.  Energy, automobile traffic, local events, weather, all aspects that directly or tangentially touch city life are addressed.

“The project aims to help local companies develop products and services that may be beneficial to the community of Skellefteå, but could also then be sold to other cities,” says Jan Pettersson, project manager at University of Luleå. The objective is to establish lasting ties between the city, university and ICT companies to stimulate local innovation. For this, original systems will be put into place: the “mobility lab ‘in particular, developed within the university, will provide a platform” where companies can develop prototypes and test whether their products meet market expectations. Technical precision tools will also be made available to them. In the mid-term, the system may also spread to other towns in northern Sweden in search of better ICT practices, creating a hub around Skellefteå “a major center for testing new services and products that make cities more intelligent.”

Three new services already being tested in the territory
Although the project has just started, “three new mobile-based and internet-controlled pilot services will soon be tested in Skellefteå,” says Jan Pettersson. The e-Health Station “which will be installed in the city by the company Explizit will allow people to come and take their pulse, have a quick health check-up and then access this data directly via the web. Another experiment involves equipping some homes with communicating energy meters to help owners better monitor their energy consumption. Finally, the third pilot is a surveillance system with sensors installed on a brand new wooden bridge that spans the river of Skellefteå.

It must be noted that the town of Skellefteå, despite its modest size, has some clear advantages. First, there’s a strong political will. Second, “77% of households could be connected to fiber optics through the local network Skellefteå Kraft, which is now one of the best in Sweden. With all operators, over 84% of households have access to the internet at speeds higher than 50 Mbps,” says Jan Pettersson. These are some very connected Inhabitants.

Estimated at 2.7 million euros, the budget of “Sense Smart City” comes mostly from the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and also the Skellefteå Municipality and the Regional Council of Västerbotten.

To know more, please contact us at the following address contact@innovcity.com

Translated by Genny Cortinovis

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