26 Nov, 2015

Smart Development For Adelaide’s Low-Carbon Innovation Aims

Adelaide’s status as an innovative, low-carbon city has been reinforced today following the opening of the Smart City Studio on Pirie Street.

The studio is the most recent development following tech giant Cisco declaring Adelaide as the first smart and connected Lighthouse City in Australia, earlier this year.

Science and Information Economy Minister Gail Gago said being a Lighthouse City helps with the economic and social transformations needed for the next phase of internet use – the internet of things (IoT).

“The Adelaide Smart City Studio will promote the opportunities the IoT will bring,” she said.

“It is a space that will allow innovators to showcase creativity including the development, testing and hopefully commercialisation of the next generation of applications and services.

“Adelaide sits alongside other major cities including Barcelona, Chicago, Hamburg and Dubai as leading places to showcase IoT innovations.

“The IoT means that everyday devices that we regularly interact with – such as household appliances, watches and cars – will be capable of 'talking' to each other via the internet.”

Cisco Consulting Services predicted in 2013 that the IoT will generate $4.6 trillion of public value globally over the next decade and $14.4 trillion of commercial value.

Climate Change Minister Ian Hunter said Lighthouse City status and the new studio will help the government achieve its bold goal of becoming the world’s first carbon neutral city.

“A smart city is one that uses technology to transform its infrastructure and make better use of energy and resources,” he said.

“Information and communications technologies can be used to create new, intelligent ways of making our cities more resource efficient and environmentally sustainable.

“The State government wants South Australia to be innovative, targeting the multi-billion dollar, high-tech/smart devices manufacturing industry.”

Lord Mayor of Adelaide Martin Haese said Adelaide is a very connected city and the Adelaide Smart City Studio was the next logical step to test new and innovative ideas.

“Adelaide was one of the first cities in the world with a large scale public Wi-Fi network and this is critical infrastructure for building smart city applications,” Mr Haese said.

“We have also been pioneers in making Council and State Government data available to entrepreneurs to support the development of new services.

“We have a very supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs in the city and the launch of the Adelaide Smart City Studio will complement the existing programs to identify new opportunities and make Adelaide the best place to build new smart city technologies and services.

“Council is strongly committed to its partnership with State Government and Cisco, and we all look forward to seeing what local technology businesses will be able to do with support from the Studio.”

The Smart City Studio opening comes ahead of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference – likely the most important climate change meeting in history.

From South Australia’s perspective, the Paris Summit represents an unparalleled opportunity.

It gives South Australia a chance to invite the world to invest in our emerging renewable energy technology and the innovations that will drive the low-carbon economy that is emerging around the world.

Matthew Halliwell