Emerging Digital Technologies for Territorial Management – The Map of Wildfire Management Solution Providers

The landscape of solution providers dedicated to wildfire management is larger than expected. Australia and the USA seem to excel with a rich ecosystem of companies.

The wildfire management mainly revolves around three objectives:

1. Prediction and prevention of wildfires.
2. Early detection and warning
3. Monitoring wildfires’ progress

The set of technologies and expertise necessary is quite diverse. Therefore, it is important to talk about wildfire management ecosystem. There are two main aspects to take care of: gathering data and analysing the data. Regarding the latter, there is an increasing use of branches of Artificial Intelligence such as computer vision and machine learning. There is also a very interesting use of digital twins for mapping territories and forests. Regarding the gathering of data, there are at least four options: 1) IoT sensor network on the ground, 2) camera network on the ground, 3) satellite observations, and 4) drone-based observations.

Please, feel free to contact us for comments, misgivings, and observations on the map and the overall research. We are eager to learn!

Emerging Digital Technologies for Territorial Management – Kerlink and NetOp together for forest wildfire prevention

We are building a database of companies that propose solutions and ideas in the areas of territorial management. We will share some of those through short posts. Recently, the solution proposed by Kerlink and NetOp has attracted our attention.

Kerlink is a well-known provider of IoT connectivity solutions. NetOp provides solutions for IoT data management and streaming. Together, they are proposing a solution that performs two tasks:

1. Monitoring weather conditions and assessing if those can increase the risk of fire.
2. Communicating the alert to public officials in charge of wildfire prevention.
3. Precisely identify areas at high risk, even in very remote locations.

The three tasks are performed using Kerlink Wirnet Gateways, LoRAWAN based system, and NetOP Technology Forest Capsules shown below.

Source: https://www.kerlink.com/blog/2021/09/02/kerlink-and-netop-technology-partnering-on-worlds-first-iot-based-wildfire-prediction-and-prevention-system/

The Forest Capsules V2 is designed to be hanged on trees rather than deployed by helicopters as in the first version. The distribution of various Capsules create a mesh network that extend the radius and the capacity of prevention. That mesh network also enables the collection of vast amounts of data that can also be used for monitoring of the forest conditions.

Which are the deployment models and costs? Are there existing implementation stories to share? We are working on it!

Emerging Digital Technologies for Territorial Management – A Research Series

Beautiful landscapes of olive groves, forests of pines and cypresses, and low vegetation plateaus accompany the driver on the road that goes from Gythio to Sparti in the South Peloponnese. Leaving the sea in Gythio and moving towards the city of Leonidas is a very pleasant drive. However, this summer, the beautiful landscapes were interrupted by long stretch of black land and burned trees. The fire did not have any mercy between Gythio and Sparti. Entire olive groves lost and plateaus losing their lively summer colours of flowers and bushes for a long black layer of ash. This summer, wild forest fires did not spare areas of the Mediterranean coast, from Spain to Turkey. Hot temperatures for extended period were the main cause, but, in some cases, also shameful people behaviour. It is not just the landscape to be destroyed, but also entire agricultural fields and serious threats to houses and inhabitants. It is not a new problem, but as the temperature rises and summer becomes longer, the issue is exacerbating.

The hot temperatures are not just one of the causes for wildfire, but they also affect the availability of water resources during summertime. Picerno, a lovely town in South Italy at more than seven hundred meters above the sea level on the Southern Apennine, had to deal with water scarcity, during the month of August. Certainly, the water scarcity problem becomes evident with elevated temperatures, but it is also due to a problematic water management system, not able to run predict maintenance at the best and unable to locate leaks rapidly at the worst.

Wildfire prevention and control, and water resource management are key challenges for local authorities, businesses and citizens living in areas affected by extended period of elevated temperatures. The question we pose in our research is to see if the Internet of Things – in convergence with other emerging digital technologies – can provide valid responses to those problems, and more in general, to the management of lands and territories in the era of climate change.

A network of analysts from the Mediterranean area are coming together to find answers to the research question, to promote best practices, and to engage with policy makers and landowners on the possibilities emerging digital technologies can offer in terms of prevention and protection.

A long year, from quantum technologies to home schooling

My last post on this blog was last November. I did not take a year off! It was a challenging year for all of us. There was time to think about life and there was time to explore new ideas, touching new territories or at least trying. Let me tell you about those places.

In January 2021, I started a new module for undergraduates at Birkebck, University of London. The module – I designed it – revolved around digital transformation. The objective was to deconstruct that term for students without a technology background and telling them why companies and public organisations use that term so much. 30 students stayed with me for 9 weeks on-line, during the harshest pandemic period in the UK, to learn about the good, the bad and the ugly of digital transformation. The lesson I learnt is that the story of digital technologies need to be told simply. There are a lot of misunderstandings around!

While I was making sense of digital transformation (for me too!), I started my self-educating journey in quantum information and communications technologies. On a rainy January day, I was in another call – I do not remember if it was Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or others. I tried almost every conferencing solutions, I believe – for a project review meeting. This curly hair young man said that “certain things can be done through quantum or almost”. That switched my curiosity. I become a student again. It was not easy. I am not a quantum expert – I do not think I have the right brain for that – but I can sort of understanding why scientists and technologists are so excited about it. I suggested to Prof. Helen Lawton-Smith from Birkbeck and Prof. Erran Carmel for Kogod Business School to look at start-ups in quantum technology and study entrepreneurship dynamics in quantum. The result was a paper published on Centre for Innovation Management Research (CIMR) at Birkbeck. You can read the paper here. There is also a video summarising the objectives and the findings.

Going towards quantum was an exciting step, but I am really at the beginning. There is a very cloudy view in front of me. I do not understand well many things in quantum. To ensure myself, I went back to more comfortable territories. I am supporting the city of Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland in their effort to design initiatives for upskilling and reskilling local workforce and young people in advanced technologies. With the dear friends at AREA, I worked on a study on the role of 5G for Augmented Reality in enterprises. And, among other things, I was visiting lecturer on What Is a Smart Rural Area? at the Rural Area and Climate Change Summer School (https://www.liminaria.org/en/2021-2/summer-school).

Last, but not least, the home schooling experience during Covid-19 was long, frustrating, but fantastic, one of the most precious moment in my life.

Thank you! Stay tuned for more stories!

On emerging digital technologies, Covid-19, and the recovery – A reflection on IoTHINGS October 2020 webinars

IoThings 2020, the event created by Gianluigi Ferri, Carla Boero, and their teams from Innovability and Innovabilify, has opened the autumn season with two exceptional sessions that I had the pleasure to chair and enjoy.

The first session, on the 8^th of October,  looked at the role of emerging digital technologies in facing the pandemic moments we are living and on the contribution to design new directions of innovation policy for Europe in its move out of the Covid-19 crisis. The discussion revolved around the tools the EU is providing with the overall Recovery and Resilience Facility and the roles played by advanced digital technologies such as the IoT, AI, 5G and others. The session started with Franco Accordino, Head of the Investment Unit at DG Connect of the European Commission, who gave an overview of the substantial commitment the EU is posing on digital infrastructure, not just 5G, but all other connectivity technologies able to create a robust, ubiquitous, and reliable digital network infrastructure in Europe. A lively, intellectually stimulated, and provoking panel followed Franco Accordino’s presentation. Alicia Asin, Founder and CEO of Libelium, Sara Notargiacomo, Co-Founder Huxelarate, Elena Pasquali, CEO of Ecosteer, and Daniela Tulone, Founder and President of Ecosurge almost hypnotized me and the audience with some provoking thoughts; from the sensor network as a key European infrastructure proposed by Alicia Asin to the need of an European operating system as another infrastructural element by Elena Pasquali, passing by considerations on skills making IoT/AI development friendly by Sara Notargiacomo and the call on design people-centric innovation strategies by Daniela Tulone. The overall output of the discussion was an invitation to the EU and the policy makers, designing the use of European funds, to be courageous, ambitious, and realty dream big for Europe.

Instead, on the 22^nd of October, the session went deeper in various technological aspects providing a detailed picture on the trends and directions in the IoT and its convergence with other technology solutions such as 5G, edge computing, and data analytics, cybersecurity and even on the potential role of quantum information and communication technologies in secure communications. A top selection of experts gave us all that; starting with Pablo Iacopino from GSMA, who gave us the picture of the trends in 5G deployments, the challenges 5G has and the ways of overcoming them. Iacopino was followed by IoT Analytics, represented by the CEO Knud Lasse Lueth and his colleague Satyajit Sinha. Firstly, the IoT Analytics CEO illustrated the trends in Industry 4.0 also, interestingly arguing that the messages of IoT project failures are not reflected in the manufacturing environment, which is genuinely enjoying the benefits of the IoT. To furtherly stress that argument, Knud Lasse Lueth showed, through survey results, how the real problem is not about technology, but about culture and people in the organisation revamping the theory of the technology fallacy in the digital transformation domain. Instead, Satyajit Sinha provided the audience with an overview on the IoT connectivity and, later, stressing the importance of security in IoT design, proposing a view on the role of quantum computing for secure communication. It was then the time of Cristiano Radaelli, Vice President at ANITEC-ASSINFORM, who gave us a picture of the Italian situation in terms of adoption of technologies such as the IoT, AI, cloud, and edge computing. He stressed the large disparity of adoption of those technologies by Italian companies arguing for better infrastructures – connecting to Franco Accordino’s presentation – and efforts in culture and skill formation – connecting to Knud Lasse Lueth’s point on organisational culture. It was then the time of Roberto Fontana from Qlik giving us several reasons on why we should invest on data and data analytics, illustrating to us, through case studies, how data is the lymph of a tree of converging technologies. The session was closed by Gabriele Ballero from the Italian Institute of Technology. He illustrated us a project in the city of Genoa, that, if funded, will transform the Ligurian city into an open living lab for emerging technologies.

I hope policy makers, organisational board members, strategists and top civil servants will have the opportunity to listen to the recordings of those two sessions. The first one went at the core of strategic decision making for exploring the EU investments for recovery and economic rebirth. The second one gave the directions on which technological paradigm to invest. My understanding is that in the following weeks IoTHINGS 2020 will continue this journey going deeper in technological themes and applications in various sectors and contexts of key importance for the European and Italian communities. This time, Gianluigi Ferri and his team did more than an IoT event, they set up the scene for a robust discussion on emerging digital technologies and the recover from Covid 19.     

Innovability Insights – Sunto della Smart Mobility Session

La sessione “Innovability Insights” su come ripensare la mobiltia’ urbana in questa fase e’ stata ricca di spunti su cui proseguire la riflessione.

La sessione e’ iniziata con la presentazione di Paolo Beria. Il rappresentante di Traspol ci ha dato una visione d’insieme sul sistema mobilita’ e sul relativo mercato, anche guardando, in modo molto pertinente, a ricerche condotte nel passato in altre casi di pandemia. La successiva presentazione di Andrea Galimberti da Kantar, invece, ci ha offerto un’analisi centrata sulle necessita’ ed apprensioni dell’individuo. Le due relazioni si sono complementate perfettamente dando tanti spunti ai relatori della tavola rotonda che si sono espressi sulla fase che stiamo vivendo e quello che significa per il prossimo futuro.  Riassumo qui alcuni dei punti salienti espressi dai relatori.

Spunti di riflessione.

• Analisi della domanda/offerta. Necessita’ di capire la domanda di trasporti e la sua evoluzione nel tempo. Di conseguenza, analizzare possibili scenari di trasformazione dell’offerta dei servizi di trasporto pubblico.
• Visione olistica. Se dobbiamo ripensare alla mobilita’ urbana, che questo ripensamento sia olistico. Bisogna guardare all’intero sistema di mobilita’ e ricalibralo sincronicamente alle nuove esigenze dettate da fattori come lo stabilizzarsi della modalita’ telelavoro, il promuovere forme di smart working, il distanziamento sociale e le necessarie norme sanitarie da seguire.
• Regolamentazione. Abbiamo bisogno di regolamentazione chiara. I relatori hanno espresso apprensione pensando alla ripartenza delle attivita’ scolastiche e lavorative nel mese di Settembre. Su questa fase vi e’ una necessita’ immediata di capire cosa si puo’ fare e cosa non si puo’ fare e tutto cio’ va espresso in termini legislativi.
• Ruolo della comunita’. Nella ridefinizione della mobilita’ urbana vi e’ un ruolo fondamentale della comunita’. Non si pensi di spingere dall’alto forme e modi di mobilita’, ma il ripensamento della mobilita’ sia inclusivo dei cittadini a livello decisionale.
• Mobility’ Manager. Altro attore fondamentale nella ridefinizione delle strategie urbane di mobilita’ e’ quello del mobility manager.
• Mercato ed incentivi. Il mercato della mobilita’ – dai veicoli al contorno dei servizi – va sostenuto. Cifre e dati che oggi caratterizzano il mondo dei trasporti e del settore delle auto sono scoraggianti e non possono essere sostenute dall’industria. Vi e’ bisogno di uno stimolo e che non sia solo di breve periodo.
• Innovazione. Bisogna innovare ed investire su paradigmi tecnologici in modo strategico e pensando ad un cammino che inizia oggi e guarda al settore transporti italiano nel 2030. Per fare cio’, bisogna collaborare. Lo sviluppo di ecosistemi di business e d’innovazione sono il meccanismo per disegnare una strategia dei transporti per il 2030.
• Sostenibilita’. Ispirandosi alle immagini di Copernicus durante i mesi di Marzo ed Aprile che ci davano questi livelli bassissimi di inquinanti, e’ giunto il momento di pensare alla sostenibilita’ come una variabile obbligatoria dei futuri modelli di mobilita’.

Vi e’ uno spunto finale che include il sistema mobilita’ ma e’ molto piu’ ricco e complesso. Verso il termine della sua presentazione, Paolo Beria s’interroga su cosa sara’ la citta’? Ed io aggiungo, e’ forse questa l’occasione per ripensare il paradigma delle smart city e ridefinire un paradigma delle “smart communities” in cui il concetto smart – in senso tecnologico, economico e di qualita’ della vita – sia diffuso dalle campagne alle citta’? Su questo tema appassionante non abbiamo avuto il tempo di confrontarci, ma Paolo Beria ha certamente aperto una strada lunga di riflessione.

Blockchain within digital transformation strategies – The II edition of the blockchain module at the Department of Management, Birkbeck

The 1st of May starts the second edition of the “Blockchain Technology and its impact on innovation, management and policy” module for MSc students at the School of Economics, Informatics and Management at Birkbeck, University of London.

This year, the module will explore the role of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) within digital transformation strategies. DLT and blockchain remain the core of the module, but discussed in the convergence with other emerging digital technology frameworks as technology enabler of digital transformation strategies.

The module is a bridge between academic thinking and the experience of businesses and public organisations. The latter is represented by eminent guest speakers from organisations like IOTA, Outlier Ventures, Secure Thingz, Big Innovation Centre, GCEX and others.

Due to the circumstances, the module will be entirely run on-line exploring topics from cryptocurrencies to the IoT passing by the convergence between blockchain and AI and discussing issues around blockchain and governance, business ecosystems, financing entrepreneurships, digital transformation strategy design, and a variety of use cases of blockchain in enterprise, social good, and governments.

Welcoming new guidelines for limiting exposure to electromagnetic fields by @infoicnirp

The debate on 5G deployments and 5G applications has always moved along two tracks. There is the track of the 5G enthusiasts, who look at 5G as a disruptive technology framework that will profoundly change businesses and economies. There is then the track of the 5G sceptics, who look at 5G as a debatable choice, particularly, because of the impact it will have on human health and well-being. The first track has built consensus on industries and governments, the second track among environmental activists and self-organised groups of citizens. I found myself talking about 5G and being interrupted by activists a couple of times. I did not mind, but it made me realise how the two tracks do not talk to each other at all and their relationship is just about confrontation.

But, on the human health and well-being, today we have a nice piece of work on which we could bring together the two tracks and ensure citizens and consumers about the positive effect of 5G for economies at large and that that effect does not have the unbearable cost of causing deadly diseases. The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) has recently published the “Guidelines for limiting exposure to electromagnetic fields”. At the ICNIRP RF EMF Guidelines website (https://www.icnirp.org/en/publications/article/rf-guidelines-2020480.html), it is possible to read the entire research and consultation process, read the publication and also watch a video in which Eric Van Rongen, Chairman of the ICNIRP, clearly summaries the research and its conclusions. The key point to highlight is that the guidelines provides “protection against all scientifically substantiated adverse health effects due to electromagnetic fields exposure in the 100 KHz to 300 GHz range” and that the electromagnetic limits set up in 1998 – the time of another publication of guidelines – are still protective in a 5G scenario.

This is good news for the deployment of 5G. However, I would invite the 5G world to take the ICNIRP guidelines and translate those in simple language for citizens and customers – short video, infographics, SMS campaign or something similar – to give them the transparency on the technology they are looking for.

From telecommuting to smart working – Experimenting new forms of working beyond the crisis

 

Ubiquitous broadband infrastructures, remote software tools, and remote worker solutions have driven the attention on smart working. But smart working has not been for many. The image of smart workers making cool things looking at the sea or at a beautiful mountain full of snow has been a pleasurable dream for many and a reality for very few. That is not the most appropriate image of a smart worker, but large majority of companies still prefer the office-based and face-to-face modes of working.

The COVID-19 emergency has forced companies to adopt smart working models. Today, smart working is largely the new form of working. The question is then: is smart working valid only in emergency situations or can we think about it as a new and widely adopted form of working? The response to that question brings another one: are the advantages of smart working for companies and societies substantial enough to justify smart working as the norm of working?

There is a quite extensive academic and business research on the topic. Certainly, it is a fabulous stream of research to embark on. But I would like to take an historic view on smart working and see if we found some answers and inspiration in history.

Yes, there is an history of smart working! In 1976, Jack Nilles published the book “The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff” (https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/540203). Jack Nilles was a former NASA engineer. During the period 1973-1974, he started investigated alternatives forms of city transportation in order to find answer to traffic, air pollution and excessive dependency on fuel and other polluting energy sources. Personal research interest did not drive entirely his work, but the global socio-economic and political scenario also inspired his work. Among many events, in 1970, the US government introduced the Clean Air Act to reduce cars’ emissions. The OPEC oil crisis in 1973 told the world the dangerous dependencies on fuel.

Jack Nilles’ research focussed on reducing the use of cars between home and the office. Offices were concentrated in business districts. Nilles imagined transforming the company in a network of satellite offices and bring those offices close to the employees’ homes. The idea was that employees could work remotely from the satellite offices when there was not needed to physically be in the main office. The satellite offices were connected to the headquarter trough telecommunication links. Using graph theory, Nilles proposed various configurations of that idea to meet the specific needs of different companies. He called this approach “Telecommuting”.

Source: Jack M.Miles “Telecommunications and Organisational Decentralisation” IEEE Transactions in Communications, 1975

The concept of “telecommuting” was later deeply studied and explained by Patricia L Mokhtarian from Georgia Institute of Technology, also in light of the technological developments in telecommunications and computer networks. In 1991, she published the seminal paper called “Defining Telecommuting” in the Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis. The paper “discusses the definition of telecommuting in two different contexts. In the first case, telecommuting is considered in the abstract, in the context of a variety of other remote work options. Each of the remote work options is classified according to its transportation impacts and its managerial implications. In the second case, the efforts of one group to define non-home-based telecommuting in the specific context of an air quality regulation designed to reduce travel are documented.” (From the paper’s abstract)

Mokhtarian’s paper become inspirational for city authorities willing to explore the impact of telecommuting on cities, businesses, and citizens. The “City of Los Angeles Telecommuting Project” is a very revealing example. The final report published in 1993 (https://www.jala.com/laexecsumm.pdf) claimed that the telecommuting project achieved the positive results in reducing air pollution, increased workers’ productivity, reducing office energy consumption, reducing traffic congestion, attracting and retailing talents, improving access to jobs and increasing affordable office space. The overall message was that telecommuting has a positive impact on city and citizens without undermining companies’ productivity and creating better business conditions.

The overall result of the “City of Los Angeles Telecommuting Project” is what smart cities are looking for today and highlight advantages for companies and workers. The current technological landscape – as mentioned at the beginning of this article – is extremely richer than the ones in 1973 and in 1993. Due to that, telecommuting has evolved towards smart working. Smart working could be a response to many cities’ systemic issues (congestions, pollution, public safety) and a new route to creativity, productivity and workers wellbeing. But smart working does not arise only because of the availability of technologies, but it is also, and mostly, about trust between parties, expectations and working relation management. The shapes of those can define different smart working models, as Jack Nilles envisaged, different configurations for different needs. The unfortunate emergency we are living give us the opportunity to discuss and experiment those configurations with the objective to expand the adoption of smart working among cities, companies, and citizens today, but mostly, when the crisis is behind us.

MOSC 2020 – Modelling Smart Cities – Call for Papers and Tools.

My journey in smart cities goes a bit deeper as member of the Program Committee of MOSC 2020. The workshop brings together Model Driven Engineering (MDE) and the smart city domain with the objective to explore how MDE can be successfully applied to smart city projects.

The objective of MDE  is defining models, methods and tools that can create a precise representation of software intense systems. That representation looks at the entire life cycle of the system supporting software engineers and other stakeholders in their work from the implementation to the maintenance of the system. MOSC 2020 wants to explore all this in a smart city context.

Call for papers and tools is now open. Here (https://mosc.gssi.it/) to know more about it and how to apply.