On Friday, October 14, 2016 at 6:00 PM, an event was held at the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub of Technopolis of the Municipality of Athens, INNOVATHENS, to present the work and plan the next steps of the Smart Cities Consortium. The “Consortium” is made up of the Municipalities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Heraklion Crete, the INFOSTRAG research group of the Industrial and Energy Economics Laboratory (LIEE) of the National Technical University of Athens, the Open Technologies Organization – EELLAK, the Association of Greek Mobile Application Companies (SEKEE) and the Association of Mobile Telephony Companies (EEKT).

Smart cities are part of the broader plan of Western societies for the transition to a knowledge society and economy. They describe environments that enhance human creativity, learning and innovation capabilities. They are created by the integration of systems in a local community (Municipality, Region) that automate interactions between end users (citizens, institutions) and applications of a networked ecosystem.

In the first section of the event, each member of the “consortium” presented the actions that have been taken to date according to “commitment-7948”, while in the second section, the planning for the next six months for each member was presented.

The detailed program of the event was:

18:00  Introductory Speeches

18:10  Open Technologies Organization – EELLAK

18:20  Municipality of Athens

18:30  Municipality of Thessaloniki (Presentation)

18:40  Municipality of Heraklion (Presentation)

18:50  INFOSTRAG Research Group of the Industrial and Energy Economics Laboratory (EVEO) of NTUA (Presentation)

19:00  Association of Mobile Application Companies of Greece (SEKEE) (Presentation)

19:10  Association of Mobile Telephony Companies (EEKT) (Presentation)

19:20  Planning of future actions

19:50  Discussion – Conclusions