Urenio Watch Watch: Intelligent Cities – Smart Cities – Innovation Ecosystems

The Benefits of Using Robotic Process Automation in Financial Services

Banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies are digitally transforming to meet client needs better. To optimize operations and improve processes means you need to do more than upgrading systems or outsourcing processes. You need to innovate. One way to achieve this is by using robotic process automation to improve your financial services’ speed and accuracy. Continue reading

New Paper_Information Management in Smart Cities: Turning end users’ views into multi-item scale development, validation, and policy-making recommendations

This article suggests ways to capture users’ views and perceptions of smart city services and applications towards more informed decision- and policy-making processes. It contributes to the debate on several issues pertaining to smart cities, urban computing, and information management.

Motivated by the dynamic field of smart-cities research, the current study represents a move to a finer understanding of end users’ perceptions and attitudes to smart-city services and applications. According to the authors, this understanding is critical not just to design smart-cities services but to ensure the functionality and sustainability of smart cities. Continue reading

IntellIoT: Next-Generation IoT environments project for innovative healthcare solutions


IntellIoT is a Pan-European Research and Innovation project supported by the European Commission. It is focused on intelligent, autonomous, and human-centered healthcare solutions. With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, patients with cardiovascular diseases will be treated remotely. The 3-year project also aims to support the rollout of IoT technologies in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Continue reading

Paper_The impacts of open data initiatives on smart cities: A framework for evaluation and monitoring

The purpose of this study is to address the gap that exists in literature on the impact evaluation of open data initiatives on the context of smart cities. The authors aim at evaluating open data initiatives’ impacts to understand further the conception and improvement of open data policies to tackle smart cities’ sustainable development. They propose a theoretical framework. Continue reading

Paper_Classifying Pathways for Smart City Development

This paper examines different approaches to smart city development that reflect different ways in which cities are governed, and different pathways urban governments take to become smart. The main research question is: When comparing a selection of smart city projects, how can pathways for their implementation be classified? By using a comparative case study research design the present study mapped how different design choices of smart cities play out in their implementation and governance. The authors analyse four cases: Smart Dubai, Masdar City, Barcelona Smart City, and Amsterdam Smart City. Continue reading

Climate Change and Inequality Projects: Finalists of 2020-2021 WRI Ross Center Prize

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities announced five projects as finalists for the 2020-2021 WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities. The selected projects show how cities can address both climate change and inequality together.  The center received 262 submissions from 160 cities and 54 countries. The five finalists are initiatives from Rosario, Argentina; Ahmedabad, India; Nairobi, Kenya; Monterrey Mexico; and London, UK. Continue reading