In Latin America, a specific focus for the second part of the project included contribution to very relevant events in Argentina and Uruguay and engagement with many local stakeholders. In addition, thanks to FI-GLOBAL partners’ involvement in different programmes with the United Nations’ FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), FIWARE has also been introduced to representatives from Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay. Thanks to those activities, and to the pilot trials performed in Colombia (in cooperation with FAO), business opportunities are now arising.
In North America, FI-GLOBAL strengthened the interaction in the USA with the Global City Team Challenge (GCTC), and was involved in different events around GCTC, strengthening the promotion of FIWARE in the USA. Support was again provided to several Powered by FIWARE SMEs to attend the event and network with US stakeholders, and moreover start two pilot trials, via the “GCTC FIWARE Challenge”, which are on the edge of being completed. In Canada, the pilot trial considered in the Smart Agriculture area with OPAF, the Ontario Precision Agri Food association was finally delayed, but opportunities are still alive and should be happening shortly after the completion of FI-GLOBAL, both in the smart agrifood and smart cities domains.
In Africa, the FIWARE Lab Node was finally set up in Senegal, and pilot trials were performed in Kenya and in Tunisia. Engagement activities have been continuing in countries such as Ivory Coast, Morocco, Tunisia, as well as Egypt and Jordan. Although other pilot trials had to be delayed, FI-GLOBAL has paved the way for the eventual success of FIWARE on the African continent, where Smart agrifood, and, to a lesser extent, smart cities, seem to be the priority.
In Asia, a FIWARE instance was finally set up in the City of Hengqin, China. Contacts are still proceeding with several Powered by FIWARE solutions. Engagement activities have also been happening in several other areas of China, including the organisation of a high-level workshop as part of a major event in Hong Kong, in cooperation the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO). In India, thanks to the interaction with the FI-MEDIA project and with the Smart Cities Lab, discussions are progressing to see whether FIWARE could be used within the very big smart city investment planned by the Indian government.
In addition, activities to engage with priority industry sectors targeted by FIWARE were also strengthened during the project. These include promoting FIWARE elements at Standardization Bodies (ETSI ISG ICM, ITU SG-20, ETSI Board OSS) and more recently the FIWARE Context Broker as one of the Connecting Europe Facilities (CEF) Digital Building Blocks or supporting the creation of strategic alliances.
During the project, contacts with academic universities and academic entities around the world interested in consolidating the expertise and knowledge on FIWARE were established.
