The international congress “MVP 2018 Smart Cities” held in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, belongs to the series of annual congresses organized by the international company BlueStar, leader in its field, dedicated to the integration of RFID solutions, Digital Panels, Security, etc.
The main topic of the event was to present the latest advances in the “Smart City” area. In this sense, the program was distributed in several presentations over two days, in which the solutions for Smart Cities have been addressed from various perspectives, including logistics, security and mobile devices.
As a guest keynote speaker, my presentation focused on the SmartSantander initiative and the services that have been integrated into the city, as well as the work to continue the development of Santander as Smart City in the future. This includes not only the different technologies used for the implementation of these smart services, but also the city strategy. Furthermore, during the event I also participated in the round table on security within the Smart City and the challenges we will face in the future.
The congress had the participation of 5 speakers from Europe, including representatives from both public and private sectors. The direction of the conference was carried out by Francisco Antona, Manager of the company for the EMEA area. Among the different sessions, we can highlight the following speakers:
- Susana Val, director of the Master from the MIT in the Zaragoza Logistics Center, with the presentation “The impact of Smart Cities in the Supply Chain”, showed the challenges facing the smart city in relation to logistics. In this regard, she focused on delivery and distribution in the last mile, taking into account the limitations imposed due to the search for ecologically sustainable systems. During the presentation Susana presented the possibilities of using IoT sensors through mail delivery vehicles.
- Pedro Pina, who presented “Sense and Connect – The Ultimate IoT Experience”, as director of Domática, a Portuguese company specialized on IoT applications. During his presentation, several of the services they have in catalog for the Smart City were described, including also several solutions for small businesses, such as smart coffee machines, that order coffee supplies when they are running out of coffee, being synchronized with each other to minimize deliveries within the city.
- Finally, I would also like to highlight Jack Weixel, Director of the “Global Partnerships” section at Google, which presented the integration of Android into the business world and its use, increasingly widespread, within the industrial processes and the provision of services in the city.
Edinburgh city 
Presenting at MVP 2018