Ministry of economy and Smart Cities klub signed the memorandum on understanding and co-operation

Mr. Rastislav Chovanec, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic (ME SR) and Miloslav Jurík, the Chairman of the Smart Cities Klubu signed the Memorandum on Understanding and Co-operation.
The ceremonial signature was a part of the opening session at the Innovation for a Better Life Conference – Smart Cities & Internet of Things in Bratislava, which was organized by the Slovak Agency for Innovations and Energy within the national project called „ inovujme.sk“. The State Secretary informed in details about the Economic Department´s priorities in the Smart Cities topic, as well as he announced a planned call for projects. This call shall be dedicated for innovating small and medium enterprises to support smart pilot solutions which shall be applied directly at the territories of respective municipalities.

Ministry of Economy of the Slovak republic (ME SR) and the Smart Cities Klub, o.z signed the Memorandum on Understanding and Co-operation during the conference called „Innovations for a better life: Smart Cities & Internet of Things.” Currently, the discussions are running, how to use the modern technologies at municipality levels to support their growth, and to give them a chance to offer smart solutions for their development. It is anticipated that the amount of people living in towns and cities will grow significantly in the next future. At present, approximately 50 percent of the entire population lives in cities, however, it might reach the level of 70 percent within the next fifteen years. Municipalities need to be ready to face such a situation. We can see already nowadays the traffic collapses in some municipalities. Thus, it is necessary to apply sophisticated solutions to manage the life in cities where the population is steadily expanding – i.e. we need to deal with parking strategies, waste management, energy efficiency of buildings, as well as with other challenges” said Chovanec.

“Memorandum is aimed to a closer co-operation between Smart Cities Klub (informal platform for a co-operation and sharing experience among Slovak municipalities and Smart City experts) and the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic. We appreciate very much the activities of the Economic department in the smart cities topic, while we know based on foreign experience, that an active co-operation of municipalities with innovation companies is a crucial point for a development towards smart cities,” said Miloslav Jurík, the Chairman of Smart Cities Klub.
Moreover, Mr. Chovanec noted, that the Ministry of Economy is just in the phase of a development of a summary paper describing main issues what about the smart cities shall be.

“A list of all existing solutions being offered by companies currently in Slovakia will be included into that paper. A chapter dealing with the financial aspects will be also incorporated there, because the financing issue is a key element to be successful in implementations of new solutions at the municipal level,” added the State Secretary. A new supporting scheme for small and medium enterprises is just under development at the Ministry of Economy, as well. Such considerations have arisen just because the SMEs are already now able and ready to submit new solutions to municipalities. A target will be to support the innovating small and medium enterprises in implementation of their innovating solutions, especially in the development and creation of smart cities. This should lead to an improved access of municipalities to the modern and smart technologies and processes, and thus to contribute to their more effective operations and advanced options for the urban development and growth.

The Memorandum signature was a part of the Conference Agenda „Innovations for the better life – Smart Cities and Internet of Things“. The 1-day international Conference dealt with several topics like calls for projects, financial issues, experience and solutions from the fields of Smart Cities. Challenges like the urbanization, climate changes, mobility and employment belong to the crucial ones. The event was organized by SIEA within the national project called „inovujme.sk“, and it was predominantly assigned for representatives from municipalities and schools, as well as for businessmen.

SITA, TASR, Communication department of ME SR

Source : www.economy.gov.sk