Announced New Projects of the Joint Innovation Center Of Huawei and CRS4 for Smart & Safe City
[Rome, Italy, November 7, 2018] Two years after its inauguration, the Joint Innovation Center (JIC) of the Pula Technology Park, the joint innovation laboratory of Huawei and the CRS4 dedicated to research projects on Smart & Safe City enters a new planning phase. To-day in Rome, Francesco Pigliaru, President of the Sardinia Region, Annalisa Bonfiglio, President of CRS4 and Thomas Miao, CEO of Huawei Italia have signed a Memorandum of Understand-ing.
The agreement provides a specific action plan to develop ICT solutions and services in the are-as of health, transport, waste management, logistics, security and Industry 4.0 with the in-volvement of the Municipality of Cagliari, local institutions, universities and local SMEs. The first services will be provided to the Municipality of Cagliari - Metropolitan City. In this way Sardinia becomes a real laboratory where human capital and technology collaborate on Smart & Safe City research projects. The signing took place at the presence of Liang Hua, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Huawei (MINISTER TBC) in the context of the Huawei European Innovation Day, underway in Rome, the international event that the multinational organizes annually to share the most inno-vative and visionary aspects of the technology industry.
With the Memorandum signed today, the Joint Innovation Center will become even more an example of how the collaboration between public and private is the key not only for the inno-vation of the territory but for the prosperity and development of citizens and businesses, which is the real objective of smart cities. Thanks to it, the JIC, located in the CRS4 at the Pula Tech-nology Park, will continue to work on Smart & Safe City research projects. It will stimulate the development of new technologies such as 5G, sharing its technological know-how to create a collaborative ecosystem. Last but not least, the topic of local skills, which will be improved and consolidated through the synergy between local public authorities and the private sector.
"With the implementation of the agreement, two years ago, we activated a joint innovation la-boratory, a complex project that with today's signature takes another step forward", said the President of the Sardinia Region Francesco Pigliaru. “This additional Memorandum con-firms and strengthens the role of excellence of the Joint Innovation Center as a catalyst for in-novation and fosters its growth, opening up new perspectives, contributing to increase the pos-itive impact on citizens, not only of urban areas but of the entire region. In fact, we are work-ing to make Sardinia a place of innovation, a real 'smart region', interconnected and oriented to the diffusion of digital services, because all the sectors have to deal with new technologies, from agribusiness to industry and the support to civil protection. Supporting and finalizing re-search means creating effective tools for the development of our territory - concluded president Pigliaru - and can improve the safety of all citizens."
"Sardinia has been following for some years the positive example of the most advanced and most committed nations in research and innovation, where large multinational companies col-laborate with the local research centers for the development of joint projects of applied re-search" said Annalisa Bonfiglio, President of CRS4. "Our research center has made availa-ble its thirty-year experience at the frontier of ICT to work together with Huawei on smart city projects, which will soon lead to new products and services available to citizens. The Sardinian citizens will be able to test these services of smart management of the information coming from the territory. In this way, the forward-looking investment of the Region in the excellence in research becomes, concretely, an opportunity for the development of our territory and the improvement of the quality of life of the Sardinians." "We are particularly proud to bring our collaboration with the Region of Sardinia and the CRS4 into a new phase. This corresponds to our vision of smart and safe city, which can only be achieved thanks to an open and collaborative ecosystem" said Thomas Miao, CEO of Huawei Italia.
"We foresee a world where all things will be sensing, connected and intelligent; we have to maximize our efforts to make the most of the new technologies. Our commitment to an in-creasingly digital Italy is based not only on a consistent plan of local investments but also on sharing a unique know-how in the ICT sector, the result of our long-term vision of innovation, which the last year recorded the investment in Research and Development of 14% of our global turnover "
RESULTS AS OF TODAY - The Joint Innovation Center, since its inauguration at the end of 2016, has already developed concrete solutions that have benefited not only the Sardinian terri-tory but the whole country.
In fact, on the occasion of the disaster in Rigopiano Hotel, the Joint Innovation Center made available the Rapid e-LTE emergency solution system to facilitate the recovery of people trapped after the collapse of the hotel due to an avalanche. The system used is part of the in-frastructures of the Joint Innovation Center, where new applications have been developed to improve rescuers' interventions in case of emergencies.
Another solution delivered by the Center is the crowd detecting, for the safety management of the crowds in the open spaces of the cities, through counting and continuous monitoring; this is based on the anonymous and dynamic recognition of the people standing in a given space, which is flanked by a parallel project of the e-LTE network for facial and behavioral recognition of potentially dangerous individuals, reported through photographs uploaded to a database.
