On the 26th and 27th of April, the members of the MAtchUP consortium gathered together in the Turkish city of Antalya for their 1st Periodic Meeting. Antalya is one of three Lighthouse cities of this Smart City project, together with Valencia and Dresden. In the meeting, the partners discussed the status of the project, its next steps and shared their experiences and progress on the implementation of technical and non-technical actions and plans.
The MAtchUP Lighthouse cities took the opportunity to share an update on what they have been working on during the first six months. One of the developments that stood out is the creation of the New Kepez Santral District, the smart district of Antalya. It will be the first of its kind where a smart city is being created from scratch using several smart city initiatives. Infrastructure, energy, mobility, water, lighting, environment, security, health, smart home and integrated technology solutions will be provided to 80,000 residents who will live and work in the region by 2019. So far, the city of Antalya has already set-up a meeting with all the residents and explained them the foreseen changes including the assignments of their new future apartments.
The New Smart City District area is currently under reconstruction. It will offer, for example, a large pedestrian and bike-friendly green corridor. Afterwards, a set of best practices on smart and energy efficient built environments will be presented to the district’s inhabitants. The residents will also have the chance to look at a demonstration of the urban renewable concepts and the smart urban solutions to be implemented in the buildings as well as the mobility solutions. The Antalya demo site will serve as a model for the Southern Europe and Middle East regions to refer to in the near future.
On the 26th of April, the MAtchUP team had the chance to visit the Antalya demo site. The study tour included the visit to all the new Smart City area that is being reconstructed. It was the occasion for the other partners to have a better idea of the size of the demo site and to see for themselves the activities ongoing in the area.
The meeting also offered everyone the possibility to discuss more in depth the mobility, energy and ICT actions that each Lighthouse city is carrying on while giving the floor to the Follower cities’ representatives to present and share the challenges they dealt with during these months.
The 1st Periodic meeting was a fruitful opportunity for the MAtchUP team members to meet face-to-face and to share once again the project’s mission to redesign cities with innovative solutions and ensure their citizens a healthier, smarter and liveable place to live in.
