Circular economy is one of the industries Beta-i is focusing on in 2021. Finding new solutions that will reduce or eliminate waste while optimizing resources is a priority. Besides, innovation in this area has a great potential to grow.
SOL Green Capital is one of the examples of this year’s effort for a more sustainable world. This is the Green and Circular economy vertical of Smart Open Lisboa (SOL), a startup implementation program designed to upgrade the city’s life. Smart Cities focus on Green and Circular economy.
Focused on the validation and integration of innovative solutions, SOL Green Capital complements Lisbon’s identity as the European Green Capital 2020. Also, it leverages on collaborative innovation to turn it even more people-friendly, green and sustainable.
SOL Green Capital has been taking applications from startups to work closely with the piloting partners Águas de Portugal, Brisa, Delta Cafés, Galp and SONAE Sierra.
Applications closed on March 7, 2021 with a total of 188 applications from startups in 39 countries. As the eligible solutions should focus on turning the city smarter, greener, and more sustainable, they must also address one or more of the six challenges presented by the program. All challenges were represented in the applications received:
After a first screening of all applications, the pre-selected applicants will be performing an online pitch before the jury. Afterwards, about 15 to 20 startups will be taking part in the Bootcamp of the program.
Only the ones with the strongest fit will be moving forward to the Experimentation Phase. This is where the startup teams will work closely with the program partners who have selected them and work on their pilots, together.
SOL Green Capital’s Bootcamp will take place in April 2021. The Experimentation phase will occur right after, from April to July of the same year.
Such a week! From 3rd to the 7th of February, the SOL Mobility bootcamp brought 25 startups from 13 different countries to present their solutions for urban mobility to the public and corporate partners of this Smart Open Lisboa (SOL) vertical edition. Urban mobility is a context where convergence is absolutely crucial to make change happen, so the collaborative innovation approach managed by Beta-i on this Open Innovation program just fits like a glove.
And after five days of intense collaboration between corporates and startups, always under Beta-i guidance and experts team support, 17 out of these 25 startups were invited to keep working with the companies, in order to develop the stunning number of 30+ pilots from now on. Check this quick video:
Such achievement was only possible because of the partner’s vision and commitment to tackle some of Lisbon’s biggest mobility challenges: from E-mobility to Digital & Personalized Mobility, from Smart Parking to Fleet, Asset and Traffic Management. They were able not only to select promising solutions from international startups but also to set up joint pilots – the best metric to translate the true collaborative innovation culture enforced by Beta-i on a daily basis.
“Our challenges are so big and diverse. That’s why this is a very good program since it enables us to work with different companies, partners and people to get different solutions“, points out the Head of the Municipal Mobility & Transport Directorate in Lisbon, Francisca Ramalhosa. She adds that “think and act like a startup” is also a huge cultural challenge – a common topic shared by some other partners, such as CP, which is currently implementing a strategic planning and innovation area. “It is crucial for us to be aware of the changes in our industry and stay open for a dialogue with a new generation of mobility solutions, so programs like this are really important”, adds CP Sectorial Supervisor, Teresa Sousa.
International and fully private companies also acknowledge the need for mutual collaboration to boost new models. “You can’t solve problems being isolated or alone. We must converge our efforts and combine solutions”, says Director for Connected Mobility at Siemens, Andy Gill. “So getting to know these high-quality startups during the program, and partnering with those who see us as a valuable partner to move forward is a fantastic model”. His thoughts also resonate on Galp, the Portuguese-based energy company that recently announced its shift as the biggest solar energy player in the Iberian Peninsula. “We’re diversifying our energy sources, and this shift must be accompanied by other strategic moves”, adds Galp Head of Innovation and Energy Efficiency, Nicolle Fernandes. “That’s what we understand SOL Mobility as a valuable program to help us see new ways of doing things and push for tangible innovation, perceived by our final clients”.
Lisbon has won the title of European Green Capital 2020, and one of the reasons is that Lisbon has a cohesive city-wide vision for sustainable urban mobility. This is achieved through measures to restrict car use and prioritise walking, cycling and public transport, and also by promoting programs like Smart Open Lisboa. This year the City Council also signed a Corporate Mobility Pact with several local partners (companies and institutions) with a set of commitments designed to make mobility in Lisbon more sustainable, through means such as creating conditions for employees to adopt new solutions and mobility behaviours.
So get ready for May, when all the pilot development impact results will be presented during SOL Mobility Demo Day: stay smart & open – oops, stay tuned 🙂
Smart Open Lisboa (SOL), an open-innovation program connecting some of the most relevant players in the residential and commercial real estate sector with startups to implement innovative solutions in the city of Lisbon, had the Demo Day for its Housing vertical, today at Museu da Água.
The 14 startups selected for this phase in the program worked on 25 pilots in partnership with the big corporations involved in the program, that ranged from real estate companies to construction companies and to utilities.
An on-going process
After an intense Bootcamp, where startups and partners met for the first time and worked on collaborative pilots, the Demo Day showcased the work that partners and startups have been developing for the last two months and the first results of these collaborative pilots.
The different rhythms of these two types of companies and the matching of technology and processes make the experimentation become a journey – these are just the first results and plans, from which the teams can learn to keep perfecting the projects in the months to come.
Solutions for real estate
The projects presented by the startups varied in range and style within the real estate and housing sectors: from testing the predictive maintenance of water leaks to the logistics and management processes associated with the food-court of commercial spaces. But they all added new layers into the partners’ businesses, for example:
Heptasense is working on identifying behaviors via surveillance cameras already installed in commercial spaces. Using Heptasense’s solution, it is possible to identify behaviors (without comprising the anonymity) of the users of the space. In this way, it’s possible for commercial spaces to identify theft in real time, and also qualify the spaces they offer and give them fair value.
Howz is working with social assistance from the Municipality to use their sensors in the homes of the assisted elderly population. The sensors examine behavior through electricity use, analyze patterns and notify the system in case of abnormalities. The system will allow for faster assistance in case of need, and the reduction of unnecessary emergency calls.
OneGrid, Meazon and Enerbrain are experimenting with partners in ways to measure consumption and identify over-consumption to take action and reduce costs in building management.
What all the projects have in common is that they all contribute to reducing inefficiency, making decisions based on accurate data and shift these companies to a more proactive way of managing.
The Demo Day for the third edition of Smart Open Lisboa (SOL), an open-innovation program connecting some of the most relevant players in the residential and commercial real estate sector with startups to implement innovative solutions in the city of Lisbon, is fast approaching – join us next Thursday, June 27th, at Museu d Água to see the solutions presented.
What to Expect
For this second vertical of Smart Open Lisboa, focused on the residential and commercial real estate sector, a total of 19 startups were present at the Bootcamp, with several going forward for the pilot phase – there are a total of 27 pilots being developed.
A preview of the pilots
As the startups’ technologies can get applied to a multitude of businesses, they have joined the partners to test these solutions in the partners’ businesses, proving its effectiveness in bettering the lives oh thousand of people in Lisbon.
Here are a few examples of the technologies applied in the pilots, whose results will be presented by the startups and partners:
Alfredo AI
Alfredo’s machine learning algorithms will help a bank evaluate residential properties (without sharing any data with Alfredo) generating new credit leads and mitigating risk through an intelligent internal portfolio analysis. In this edition of SOL Housing, they tested it against the traditional way banks evaluate apartments and houses.
Nudge Portugal
Nudge Portugal developed a pilot to intervene in a commercial space’s food court to: increase the return of food trays, the screening of garbage for recycling in the food court as well as to avoid perpendicular queuing and corresponding blocking of corridors.
Meazon
Meazon worked with the partners on the installation of energy submeters in a building to monitor the elevators and allow a faster service and predictive maintenance through analytics and alerts based on the customer needs using the power consumption or production data.
Howz
This startup developed a system to measure electricity use and other data in the homes of older people, identifying events that describe the activity and building routine patterns. Then, they look for anomalies and send status alerts to families.
MycroftMind
This startup developed software of predictive maintenance of water leakages or bursts in a determined neighborhood, by a collection of data with sensor networks and machine learning algorithms.
The third edition of Smart Open Lisboa (SOL), an open-innovation programme connecting some of the most relevant players in the residential and commercial real estate sector with startups to implement innovative solutions in the city of Lisbon, is currently in its pilot development phase.
This means the extraordinary startups that triumphed in the bootcamp are now developing solutions with the SOL Housing partners to be applied in the city of Lisbon.
Let’s meet some of these innovators and the solutions they are bringing!
Howz
Louise Rogerson, from Howz has a mission: to improve the living of elderly population so they can be independent for as long as possible. #SOLhousing #SmartopenLisboa
Publicado por Smart Open Lisboa em Quarta-feira, 10 de abril de 2019
Louise Rogerson, COO of Howz, has a mission: to improve the living of the elderly population so they can be independent for as long as possible. They developed a solution that measures an elderly person’s home electricity usage via clamps, sockets or from their smart meter and fuse this with data from other sensors. They then build up a pattern of daily behavior. Thanks to machine learning they identify unusual activity or trends and notify the family in case of abnormal activity.
Alfredo AI
Alfredo AI is a Portuguese startup that was born when its founders needed to find a house and couldn't find enough real-estate information. There are now innovating in SOL Housing.#smartopenlx #smartopenlisboa
Alfredo AIis a Portuguese startup that was born when its founders needed to find a house and couldn’t find enough real-estate information. They now provide real-estate stakeholders with a time-efficient and objective way to access the market and each individual property.
