It gathers half a hundred entities, from the most varied areas of business, academy and national associations. CEiiA, Brisa Innovation and Technology, COMPTA, Siemens and University of Minho (Prof. Ricardo J. Machado - UM-Cities) compose the cluster Board of Directors.
With the aim of fostering innovation and the internationalization capacity of national companies linked to the smart cities sector, the Smart Cities Portugal Cluster was presented in Porto on January 16th. It gathers half a hundred entities, from the most varied areas of business, academy, and national associations.
The cluster intends to leverage the development and experimentation of innovative solutions, with the possibility of replicating concepts and models, as well as fostering the creation and competitiveness of companies connected to the smart cities world in Portugal.
CEiiA, Brisa Innovation and Technology, COMPTA, Siemens and University of Minho (Prof. Ricardo J. Machado - UM-Cities) compose the cluster Board of Directors. University of Évora and Polytechnic Institute of Bragança respectively assume the presidency of the General Assembly and Fiscal Council. Indra, ESRI, Ubiwhere, DNA Cascais, NEC, ZTE, Follow Inspiration, APVE, Oracle, Soltraáfego, Alcatel-Lucent, Digital Port, Focus-bc, Inocrowd, Kaizen Institute, Wattguard, Wisesome, Medidata, VPS, Microprocessor, Key Content , Buzzstreet, Endesa, Águas de Gaia, Gfi, Philips Startup Lisbon and Portuguese Network of Smart Cities are just some of the entities that integrate the Smart Cities Portugal Cluster.
Encouraging urban entrepreneurship is the watchword, in the search for a favourable environment to the development of intelligent urban projects, in line with territorial specificities, and of products and systems with high added value for intelligent cities at a global level. The initiative, which presents itself as a "competitiveness cluster", also seeks the promotion of inter-clusterization initiatives.
The creation of this platform was only possible after the submission of the application to the Portugal 2020 program in July 2014. In November 2016, Catarina Selada, the director of the Cities Unit of INTELI, reported to Smart Cities newsletter the role that the cluster will play "in the elimination of market barriers, in areas such as intelligence, business models, financing, regulation, standardization, public procurement or stakeholder involvement". She also referred the possibility of accessing to "specific funding under the Portugal 2020 program for the development of collective activities" and mentioned the potential of national companies acting in the smart cities domain to create strong brand positioning in the European market through "presentation of Project proposals to programs such as Horizon 2020, COSME, LIFE+, among others."
