The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 says that 60% of workers will require additional training by 2027, with the biggest priority being analytical thinking. "We're in the early days of a real revolution in terms of how AI is affecting work and employment. The technology's growing exponentially, but our skills, our organizations and our institutions are not adapting nearly as quickly." Read the full interview of Erik Brynjolfsson, Professor at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centred AI at the World Economic Forum. SMACITE project is working towards addressing the skills gap...

The IMD World Competitiveness Center launched the Smart City Index to assess the economic and technological aspects of smart cities on the one hand, and their “humane dimensions” on the other (quality of life, environment, and inclusiveness) in 2019. The 2023 Smart City Index has been recently announced. In this survey, some 20,000 citizens were asked about 15 aspects of living in their cities; they were asked which were the most urgent, from affordable housing and road congestion to fulfilling employment and green spaces. They were also asked about various structures and technologies in a bid...

A Smart City is a city in which new technologies are applied to optimize traditional services and offer new ones, improving the quality of life of citizens while promoting sustainability. The deployment of a Smart City requires the cooperation of various stakeholders, such as citizens, communities, companies, and municipalities. The main Smart Cities solutions can be classified into the following categories: Transport and mobility management: For example, improving rush hour congestion by adapting traffic lights to the actual traffic density, directing a driver to the nearest on-street parking...

On March 15th and 16th we have held a new face-to-face project meeting in Sofia (Bulgaria). In this meeting we gathered all the partners of the project to follow up the main activities and commitments of the project. More specifically the main topics addressed were related to the designing of the learners’ training and assessment methodology and educational scenarios and the learning resources for the upskilling and reskilling of Smart Cities technicians and engineers. The creation of the MOOC and virtual worlds was also discussed among the project partners to develop the platform and all the...

Professional training in the field of IT technologies is the main focus of BASSCOM member companies.In order to have qualified specialists, to develop digital solutions, smart cities, entrepreneurship and green skills, we need good professional education. These messages were presented in the BASSCOM Barometer. The research shows the development trends of the software sector in Bulgaria.As a partner in the SMACITE project BASSCOM will contribute to open 10 new technological schools in Bulgaria in the next years. Link to the English version of the survey (BASSCOM Barometer 2022):

More than 20 European entities are working on a project that will create Vocational Training content on sustainable energy to meet the needs of companies in the sector.University of West Attica, Cluster GAIA and Politeknika Txorierri are SMACITE project partners that are participating in this project. More than 20 business and training entities from Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Portugal and Spain have joined together in the SECOVE (Sustainable Energy Centres of Vocational Excellence) project, an initiative that aims to establish a cooperation network between centres of excellence in vocational training...

How can technologies help manage multiple activities in a central urban environment? Apro Formazione tells us about DIGITAL and SUSTAINABLE HARBOUR 2030, an example of Smart Cities project being implemented in Genoa in which data will be used to provide services, improve safety and accessibility of spaces and communicate environmental and cultural information. DSH2030 is a project developed by ETT S.p.A., Marina Porto Antico SpA, Aitrust, BF Partners, Circle Garage, Colouree, Netalia in collaboration with (MaLGa - Machine Learning Genoa Center).The Porto Antico di Genova of Genoa, a marina with...

If Europe is aiming at its own digital sovereignty, it should give a closer look at public procurement as a tool to support digital SMEs innovation ecosystem. As a matter of fact, the Public sector has a large purchasing power and it can act as first user of the innovation and pulling it to the market, by overcoming so called “market failures”. “GovTech”, “Regulatory sandboxes” and “Interoperability” are just a few of the elements to be introduced in the process of procuring digital innovations, to make sure the solutions are scalable, comply with the EU legislation and support European SMEs...

SMACITE project aims to foster Smart Cities in Europe by developing the skills of the relevant stakeholders. To achieve this goal, we will use Moodle as a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform to deliver free, accessible training to all interested parties. The MOOC will cover various aspects of Smart City development, using a student-centered as well as a multidisciplinary approach combining an adaptive blend of both technical (for Smart Cities enabling technologies) and non-technical (soft, entrepreneurship, and green) skills and competences. With this comprehensive and easily accessible...