SynchroniCity had significant impact, falling in three categories: locally, on the EU level, and globally. Locally, for each city/community as well as for the companies involved, the impact was broad – as can be expected when the scope was delivering service to citizens across sectors.
On the EU level, the baseline of existing initiatives, such as the Connecting Europe Facility as well as previous work in H2020 projects, provided a very solid baseline and understanding of the barriers for the market to scale.
On this basis, SynchroniCity has successfully laid the foundation for a global market based on real time governance and European values, interoperability and ethical use of data for scaling public and private digital services, equipping cities and communities for the digital transformation, while providing input for European policy and influencing the development of technical architectures globally, such as the Japanese Society 5.0.
The MIMs, as introduced in the attached “Guide to SynchroniCity”, are simple, transparent mechanisms that form the foundation for sustainable, scalable and efficient deployment of AI- and IoT-enabled digital services. They are vendor-neutral and technology-agnostic, and they can be integrated with existing systems. Currently, there are three validated MIMs: Context Information Management, Common Data Models, Marketplace, and two underway as work items: Fair AI and Personal Data Management. As more cities and companies adopt them, the market grows and economies of scale reduce costs for buyers and developers. This breaks down barriers to procurement, also for smaller companies, and allows cities and communities to identify and tackle problems quickly and sustainably, to the benefit for their citizens.
The EU-wide recently announced “Join, Boost, Sustain” political declaration for scaling digital solutions in Europe (
http://living-in.eu(opens in new window)) has adopted the work from SynchroniCity as the basis. It is an initiative of EUROCITIS, OASC and ENoLL, together with the European Commission (CNECT, REGIO, GROW, DIGIT a.o.) and the European Committee of the Regions.
OASC was recognized by TM Forum, a global association of telecom providers as the most influential body in this space, especially for the work carried out in SynchroniCity, and the standards input to the European and global standards organisations.
OASC was invited, on the basis of the SynchroniCity project, to join the G20 2019 Summit session in Osaka Japan on smart cities to present the work, which led to substantial impact in Japan and globally, and many other initiatives.
In total, SynchroniCity has shown a pathway to harnessing global dynamics to address local needs, heralding a potential new era of services similar to the mobile revolution brought about by simple, European standards.
