Periodic Reporting for period 1 - METACITIES (MetaCities Excellence Hub in South-Eastern Europe)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-01-01 do 2024-03-31
METACITIES project establishes an Excellence Hub that spans a large geographical area, that of Southeastern Europe, represented by three clusters in Cyprus, Greece, and Bulgaria. Each cluster consists of partners involved in the Quadruple Helix (i.e. scientific, industrial, social, public) with the aim to collaboratively design common digital Research and Innovation strategies, policies, and joint pilots, orchestrated towards the benefit of the citizens, the stakeholders, the local ecosystems and the growth of the whole southeast European region. The technical objective of the METACITIES Excellence Hub relates to Digital Twin and Metaverse technologies for the benefit of the future cities.
Starting from the Physical World, representing the actual city or region, METACITIES propose a series of system blueprints and recommendations that can be used to successfully build their Digital Twins and Metaverses. METACITIES conceptual model represents an evolution of the notion of smart city, which usually implies the use of Information Communication Technologies for the processing of data and their statistical manifestations in the form of dashboards. As Digital Twins are directly and in real time, interconnected and interacting with the physical city, exchanging processing data and making decisions, they can execute actions on the city’s operations that may affect its daily life.
METACITIES’ overall objective is to establish an Excellence Hub for future cities and regions in Southeast Europe, built upon Digital Twins (DTs) and metaverse technologies, through cross-border collaboration focusing on innovation and engaging all different categories of actors of the Quadruple Helix (QH). To this end, specific domains with strong social footprint are selected as reference implementation areas to guide and validate the proposed technological, collaboration and strategy framework and efficiently coordinate the input from the different actors: academic, business, public authorities and societal actors, comprising the three participating innovation ecosystems, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria.
Starting from the Physical World, representing the actual city or region, METACITIES propose a series of system blueprints and recommendations that can be used to successfully build their Digital Twins and Metaverses. METACITIES conceptual model represents an evolution of the notion of smart city, which usually implies the use of Information Communication Technologies for the processing of data and their statistical manifestations in the form of dashboards. As Digital Twins are directly and in real time, interconnected and interacting with the physical city, exchanging processing data and making decisions, they can execute actions on the city’s operations that may affect its daily life.
METACITIES’ overall objective is to establish an Excellence Hub for future cities and regions in Southeast Europe, built upon Digital Twins (DTs) and metaverse technologies, through cross-border collaboration focusing on innovation and engaging all different categories of actors of the Quadruple Helix (QH). To this end, specific domains with strong social footprint are selected as reference implementation areas to guide and validate the proposed technological, collaboration and strategy framework and efficiently coordinate the input from the different actors: academic, business, public authorities and societal actors, comprising the three participating innovation ecosystems, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria.
METACITIES’ overall objective is to establish an Excellence Hub for future cities and regions in Southeast Europe, built upon Digital Twins (DTs) and metaverse technologies, through cross-border collaboration focusing on innovation and engaging all different categories of actors of the Quadruple Helix (QH).
The Metacities Excellence hub set the collaboration framework, investigated the local and regional R&I strategies with respect to the digital transformation of cities, related to the current state of Digital Twins (DTs) and Metaverse in SouthEast Europe (SEE), focusing on the key areas of development and the overall technological readiness of countries to embrace DTs and Metaverse technologies. To that respect various opportunities for collaboration among the Cyprus (CY), Bulgarian (BG), and Greek (GR) ecosystems within the context of the METACITIES project were investigated and outlined, with the goal of the creation of a joint framework for the successful adoption and implementation of Digital Twins and Metaverse technologies in SEE. To that respect and for the specific application area, goals, visions, and priority areas of each cluster are identified. The overlapping objectives among the different local strategies were harmonized and aligned towards the formation of common goals for the joint R&I strategy and the shared vision for the future of smart cities and smart regions was defined. This was performed with the definition of a Reference Model for Collaboration, based on the Quadruple Helix (QH) Approach, applied in the context of Smart Cities. This model is followed and properly adapted to the smart city cases addressed by each of the three regional innovation ecosystems. For each such priority area, comprehensive agendas for research and innovation are developed and the key research topics, methodologies, and activities that are undertaken to achieve relevant identified goals and objectives are outlined. Furthermore, the project proceeded with the initial definition of the methodology and the implementation plan the METACITIES project’s partners should follow to reach the objectives of the Joint Strategy from conceptualization to execution. This was performed together with the development and definition of a set of indicators and important milestones to track progress and measure the impact towards the implementation of the R&I strategy. All the above were described in D2.1.
In the meantime, the basic information for Digital Twins and Metaverse as well as an extensive literature review on existing solutions that have already been developed in Southeast Europe countries and worldwide in general, was provided in Deliverable D3.1. Initial work has been performed on the development of the Open Digital Twin framework (ODTF) that will facilitate the co-development of complementary future city domains along with their corresponding Digital Twins. D3.1 reports on elicited functional and non-functional requirements from all the stakeholders, proposes a high-level architecture, and depicts the initial blocks and requirements for the METACITIES digital architecture.
The project defined its impact maximization strategy and plan in terms of a./ dissemination and communication; b/ knowledge transfer and capacity building; c./ engagement, clustering and standardization. Measures for strengthening cross-border collaboration among the participating innovation ecosystems are being defined and orchestrated. These are documented in Deliverable D6.2. Various activities have already being implemented and presented as part of WP6 work and under the Impact section.
The Metacities Excellence hub set the collaboration framework, investigated the local and regional R&I strategies with respect to the digital transformation of cities, related to the current state of Digital Twins (DTs) and Metaverse in SouthEast Europe (SEE), focusing on the key areas of development and the overall technological readiness of countries to embrace DTs and Metaverse technologies. To that respect various opportunities for collaboration among the Cyprus (CY), Bulgarian (BG), and Greek (GR) ecosystems within the context of the METACITIES project were investigated and outlined, with the goal of the creation of a joint framework for the successful adoption and implementation of Digital Twins and Metaverse technologies in SEE. To that respect and for the specific application area, goals, visions, and priority areas of each cluster are identified. The overlapping objectives among the different local strategies were harmonized and aligned towards the formation of common goals for the joint R&I strategy and the shared vision for the future of smart cities and smart regions was defined. This was performed with the definition of a Reference Model for Collaboration, based on the Quadruple Helix (QH) Approach, applied in the context of Smart Cities. This model is followed and properly adapted to the smart city cases addressed by each of the three regional innovation ecosystems. For each such priority area, comprehensive agendas for research and innovation are developed and the key research topics, methodologies, and activities that are undertaken to achieve relevant identified goals and objectives are outlined. Furthermore, the project proceeded with the initial definition of the methodology and the implementation plan the METACITIES project’s partners should follow to reach the objectives of the Joint Strategy from conceptualization to execution. This was performed together with the development and definition of a set of indicators and important milestones to track progress and measure the impact towards the implementation of the R&I strategy. All the above were described in D2.1.
In the meantime, the basic information for Digital Twins and Metaverse as well as an extensive literature review on existing solutions that have already been developed in Southeast Europe countries and worldwide in general, was provided in Deliverable D3.1. Initial work has been performed on the development of the Open Digital Twin framework (ODTF) that will facilitate the co-development of complementary future city domains along with their corresponding Digital Twins. D3.1 reports on elicited functional and non-functional requirements from all the stakeholders, proposes a high-level architecture, and depicts the initial blocks and requirements for the METACITIES digital architecture.
The project defined its impact maximization strategy and plan in terms of a./ dissemination and communication; b/ knowledge transfer and capacity building; c./ engagement, clustering and standardization. Measures for strengthening cross-border collaboration among the participating innovation ecosystems are being defined and orchestrated. These are documented in Deliverable D6.2. Various activities have already being implemented and presented as part of WP6 work and under the Impact section.
The main technological advancements that takes place in METACITIES relate to the ODTF framework and applicability to build city Digital Twins and is on going . METACITIES design pilots and demonstrators drawn from specific smart city sectors, jointly contributed by the three Southeastern Europe clusters illustrated. Prototypes will be executed to act as Proof of Concepts in each of the three selected smart city sectors by building instances of the proposed Digital Twins and Metaverses according to the Open Digital Twin Framework and using actual Information Communication Technology infrastructures contributed by the project’s partners.
• The Greek Pilot focuses on Smart Mobility in the region of Patras. Detailed mobility use cases will be designed, and Digital Twins will be identified and described, representing characteristic mobility cases of the city of Patras.
• The Bulgarian Pilot deals with Smart buildings and Energy efficiency in the region of Burgas. Indicative use cases that will be specified include potential uses of renewable sources of energy (PV), budget planning for energy usage and buildings renovation.
• The Cypriot Pilot deals with Smart Urban Planning. It will make use of interactive and immersive technologies to visualize and understand smart city data. By overlaying physical modelling, a 4D map will be used to forecast expected and predicted actions and behaviors of the environment and of other users, follow the history, and to check and control the function of solutions created for different problems in the city.
• The Greek Pilot focuses on Smart Mobility in the region of Patras. Detailed mobility use cases will be designed, and Digital Twins will be identified and described, representing characteristic mobility cases of the city of Patras.
• The Bulgarian Pilot deals with Smart buildings and Energy efficiency in the region of Burgas. Indicative use cases that will be specified include potential uses of renewable sources of energy (PV), budget planning for energy usage and buildings renovation.
• The Cypriot Pilot deals with Smart Urban Planning. It will make use of interactive and immersive technologies to visualize and understand smart city data. By overlaying physical modelling, a 4D map will be used to forecast expected and predicted actions and behaviors of the environment and of other users, follow the history, and to check and control the function of solutions created for different problems in the city.