Smart Open Lisboa (SOL) is an ambitious initiative that aims to involve startups and their innovative solutions in contributing towards a better, smarter and more efficient city. Its third edition gains steam, as the Bootcamp phase of SOL Housing kicks off today in Lisbon. The Housing vertical is dedicated exclusively to solutions for smart cities focused on the value chain of the commercial and residential real estate.
The Bootcamp will happen between 18 and 22 of March, in Beta-i’s headquarters and it brings 19 selected startups from the applicants batch to meet the program partners.
Started in 2016, Smart Open Lisboa, now in the SOL Housing vertical, is turning the city of Lisbon into a laboratory of experimentation, with utilities and companies working with startups to solve problems and make the citizens’ lives easier.
The program is backed by the city hall (CML) and it partners up with several major players in the market. Together they are making Lisbon an entrepreneurial city, making an investment into upgrading city life.
The Bootcamp for Smart Open Lisboa, Housing vertical, is starting next week. As the anticipation grows, we can finally meet all the startups that are coming for the Bootcamp.
Selection based on matching
After the applications phase, a selection of startups does a session of online pitching – showing their projects to the partners of the program and explaining how they can respond to the challenges.
The startups selected for the Bootcamp are the ones that can best respond to the challenges presented by the program and can better match their teams and technologies with the business goals of the partners.
The challenges faced
This vertical of Smart Open Lisboa – SOL Housing – focused on challenges faced in residential and commercial buildings, ranging from management of buildings, data processing and customer experience, to more sustainable solutions for management and new business models (like co-living).
Startups joining SOL Housing Bootcamp
Click “+” to know more about what they do and where they’re from!
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Alfredo was designed to bring transparency to the market. It consists of an Artificial Intelligence model, which enables in-depth quantitative analysis of the property market.
BEAD is an IoT company developing innovative, sustainable and energy-efficient digital building solutions through infrastructure integrations and our analytics & AI platform.
Construction project management software for project managers and investors/owners in a cloud system that provides real-time access to all project information.
Doinn is an online platform where short term rentals hosts and property managers can automatically schedule and buy services such as housekeeping and laundry, provided by high-quality and professional companies.
The Enerbrain system is a “plug&play” kit that can be easily installed in every building to fine-tune energy usage in real time without any drastic changes or replacements to the existing HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) system.
Heptasense is an Artificial Intelligence software that is able to recognize any threat on video and send an alert is sent to the security teams, in real-time, to act on it, and without compromising privacy.
Howz measures the use of electricity in elderly people’s homes to build a pattern of daily behaviour and then identify unusual activity and notify the family.
Idatase developed NetLume, an innovation platform that solves the key problem of the “human factor” for successful IoT initiatives by integrating domain experts and business into the IoT domain.
LumenCache shrinks Smart Grid features bringing them down the individual power loads inside buildings. It adds a secure, wired communication layer to the power distribution enabling every installed or plugged device to have a reliable foundation of energy management and safety.
MClimate is an IoT company which changes the way people use the appliances they already have, connecting to heating and cooling devices and allowing the customer to control 70% of their electricity bill – turning any home into a smart home.
Mycroft Mind developed a DeepGrid platform that collects and processes data from smart metering and smart grid infrastructures, maximizing the analytics and insights to existing sensor networks.
Nice Visions makes customizable solar facade tiles for sensitive urban areas, combining solar cells and sustainable energy production and merging it with aesthetics.
Via innovative computer vision and deep learning algorithms, Parquery analyses images to detect objects from any camera and to provide real-time information to mobility operators in the smart city.
Proximi.io is the only technology-agnostic platform that combines all indoor and outdoor mobile positioning under a shared ecosystem, combining together not only all the technologies but also all the different use cases for location data.
Trustbill is an app that manages utility bills for European families, by identifying the best value deal for each family given their consumption pattern and switching them to it, thus helping families reduce their monthly household costs.
Wear health uses off-the-shelf wearable and IoT devices from partners and proprietary cognitive technologies to build an intelligent system that can detect, prevent and predict safety and health risks of workers.
Gonçalo Faria first became interested in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship in 2011, during his MBA, where he recognized innovation was an area where his business experience and his creative and performing arts background could be tied together.
He spent the following years working in strategy consulting in Portugal, Angola and South Africa, being regularly involved with innovation projects and reports and mentoring startups, before dedicating himself fully to innovation when joining Beta-i in January 2018.
Since joining Beta-i one year ago, Gonçalo has taken on the challenge of directing Smart Open Lisboa, which was a perfect fit for his personal and professional ambitions.
It was my initial project and I don’t imagine a better fit with my purpose in life, to bring technology and innovative solutions to better people’s lives. This is a program that has a clear focus on having a positive social and environmental impact, and that is very important for me.
When he joined Beta-i, he became involved in Data Pitch, an EU-funded Open Innovation program that aims to promote a data sharing space in Europe by putting startups working with data from corporate partners based on specific sectoral or data provider challenges.
Joining the open-innovation team was a clear path. To him it’s more and more clear that innovation can only happen in collaboration: when you get together several stakeholders with complementary views, information, needs, solutions, technologies.
Open innovation programs aim to structure that collaboration between two very important agents of change: startups and corporates.
“In a program like Smart Open Lisboa, we have several corporates within a specific sector (either Mobility or Housing/ Real Estate for the verticals we have already implemented) collaborating with the startups and among themselves. And on top of this, we have the City Hall that gives the program a political/ institutional backing and provides the program with access to the city resources and spaces for testing innovative solutions.”
He reasons that considering these factors, you can find advantages for all the stakeholders, which is fundamental to a successful project.
“The City Hall is able to improve citizen’s life and the city management with innovative solutions and to be understood as a friendly city for startups and innovation.”
But it’s in partners that we see the biggest changes: “The corporate partners, are able to tap into the global source of innovation in their specific sector and test new disruptive solutions in collaboration with startups and other program partners and we’re also seeing a budding capacity to handle innovation – it’s learning with peers coupled with learning by doing when it comes to innovation skills and mindset.
As for startups, “they get access to a group of corporate partners, typically hard to reach, and the potential to test a solution with them and eventually get a partner that can give them easy access to the market and jumpstart their growth.”
What we really aim for on our open-innovation programs is for real value added pilots to happen and for the best deals to come forward either investment or partnership deals.
He also took on another big challenge: to direct Smart Open Lisboa and to steer it into its current version – with different verticals in each edition and a very tight alignment between the program verticals and the strategic priorities of the city. “When Smart Open Lisboa started in 2016 it was structured as a one single program dealing with several smart city sectors. We soon realized that it would be much more effective if we created specific vertical programs. It would be much more aligned with the partner’s core business and would present a much stronger value proposition to the startups.”
Implementing the first vertical, Mobility, last year was a challenging feature, but one that paid off: the team immediately realized that the new structure made much more sense. “Not only the partners were much more aligned in their goals, but when they got everyone together for the bootcamp week, there was an amazing level of collaboration and exchange of ideas. Between startups and partners, there was a group of more than 40 companies in the mobility sector, together in the same room, exchanging ideas and collaborating. That’s an amazing feat in itself!”
After a successful Mobility vertical, the Housing vertical has launched and is now preparing the bootcamp. They hope to re-create the “magic” that happened in the previous edition.
We are now running our second vertical, SOL Housing, and we are seeing the same level of commitment and collaboration from the partners… we are really looking forward to getting the startups in the mix.
When asked what are the main reasons that make the program interesting for startups, validation is the top of mind answer. “The main reasons both revolve around validation. They are looking forward to validating their product, experiment their product or solution in a city like Lisbon, and make it resonate with clients. And also, validate their business – does the solution work for possible clients and are they willing to pay for it? They also have the opportunity to make a deal with a big client, that will get them access to a large market.”
Besides the fact that having the engagement of the City Hall and municipal companies is vital for the success of smart city solutions, Lisbon is also a great city to test these innovative solutions: “It’s a European capital, with a similar regulatory and market environment as the rest of the EU, but with a very manageable size in terms of area and population. And when you are piloting new solutions this becomes a critical factor, you want the pilot to have enough users and exposure to be measurable, but it shouldn’t be too big to handle. You would probably shy away from testing new solutions in a megalopolis but you would probably not want to do it in any backwater or ghost town.”
And then, sometimes, magic happens, and startups that come to test solutions end up falling in love with the city and understanding the benefits of setting up shop here. Lifestyle and quality of life, cost of living, availability of highly skilled developers and engineers at very competitive salaries compared to other European cities, and the general easiness of doing business here. Lisbon is trendy nowadays, and there surely are very strong reasons for that.
Besides the opportunities that the program brings to innovative startups, the impact it brings to the city is one of the reasons it is such compelling work for him. “There are two levels of impact. The first one is the cultural change and more openness to innovative solutions and working collaboratively from different departments of the city hall and the program partners, which is really important if we want to have a lasting impact.”
The second level of impact is the direct change provoked by implemented pilots. Just looking at the last edition of mobility, Gonçalo recalls several: “We now have a better understanding of the flow of people and vehicles in the city and the impact of traffic in air quality, and that can lead to more informed city management and investment decisions. There has been a reduction of traffic (thanks to better parking solutions, a reduction of corporate fleets in the city and additional personalized mobility alternatives like e.scooters). Citizens have now a better “user experience” of the city – there are several apps helping them make their mobility choices, and citizens with reduced mobility now have better service.”
Citizens have now a better user experience of the city.
In this sense, it becomes hard for him to choose the best innovative solutions the program brought to light. “It’s hard to choose because there are many of them, and all of them really interesting and impactful.
But some come to mind: Shotl(a mobility-on-demand solution for people with reduced mobility being developed with Carris), Eccocar (a shared corporate fleet solution, doing a pilot both with Ferrovial and the City Hall), E-floater(a last mile solution, using electric micro scooter that is doing a pilot with Ferrovial on the Lispolis area of Lisbon, and that had a great involvement with the City Hall in defining solutions to avoid all the major issues most other electric mini scooter startups are facing) and Meep (a journey planner with the most complete and accurate info on Lisbon mobility operators, that allows you to choose the best way to get anywhere in the city).”
Keep following the blog for more updates on Smart Open Lisboa, and subscribe to our newsletter.
What makes SOL Housing, the new Smart Open Lisboa vertical, the place for your startup? Explore the reasons why you should consider participating in the programme if you have a startup with a solution for these challenges: urban management & smart infrastructure, construtech, proptech, resource efficiency, smart homes, buildings & retail properties, home care & assisted living, customer & community experience and financial services.
1. Work directly with Lisbon’s Municipality
Lisbon is a city that is now going through a lot of changes: the birth of several innovation hubs, the foreign investment, real-estate development and several programmes from the municipality to invest in the upgrading of the city’s quality is making it a perfect hotspot for new projects to be tested and applied.
Through this programme, you will be working directly with the partners – in this case, Lisbon’s Municipality is the main partner of the programme and you will get access to the decision makers.
2. Test your solution in different industries and sectors
In Smart Open Lisboa, you’ll get the opportunity to test your solution in different industries and sectors, co-operating with different partners of the programme.
You can read here about some of the pilots being developed in the last vertical.
3. Meet prospective clients and the key players in the industry
The main goal of the programme is to promote the cooperation between startups and companies – you don’t need to give up any equity of your company to join.
5. Applications are closing soon
The applications for SOL housing, the new vertical of Smart Open Lisboa, are closing on the 13th of February. So, don’t waste any time and click here to apply now!
Smart Open Lisboa is the open-innovation programme of the Lisbon Municipality that is bringing innovation to the city in several different verticals. The last edition was focused on the mobility vertical, and brought several startups who are successfully working with programme partners to implement pilots in Lisbon. Let’s get to know some of the on-going projects!
Eccocar wants to make your fleet more efficient
One of the programme’s startups, Eccocar, is implementing a pilot in partnership with Ferrovial and Lisbon’s Municipality to help increase the efficiency of their fleet with a car sharing principle. They hope to show their success by measuring KPI’s like management time (the time spent by the user booking the vehicle), fleet usage time, driver per car and fuel consumption. By digitizing the fleet, they hope to reduce costs, make better use of the cars and maintain the same level of service while reducing the fleet.
See the video below for a full explanation of the project:
Wall-i is creating sensors for better experiences
In partnership with Metro de Lisboa, Wall-i is installing visual sensors in key locations inside Metro stations around Lisbon.
The sensors create a heatmap to get more accurate data about the flow of users in the station, helping managers make better decisions. The sensors are also installed in entrances to detect and reduce fraud in the ticket validation gates.
This startup is also testing weather sensors all over the city, this time in partnership with Lisbon’s Municipality, to collect better environmental data in key points of the city: measuring things like CO2 level, humidity, temperature, noise level, etc.
This product is just one of many developed by this innovative startup. Get to know them here:
Shotl is changing the shuttle business
Another startup featured in this open-innovation programme is Shotl, who is trying to modernize the shuttle service.
Their mobility platform matches multiple passengers headed in the same direction with a moving vehicle. This service is especially thought out for suburban areas with less public transportation connections, and for passengers with reduced mobility, who are often confronted with fewer solutions and access.
In SOL Mobility, they have partnered up with Carris, the main bus provider in Lisbon, to implement their model in order to create an on-demand bus service for people with reduced mobility.
Get to know their model in this video:
But Smart Open Lisboa is not done innovating in the city of Lisbon. They are now accepting applications for the SOL Housing vertical, looking for startups with solutions that can be applied to solve these challenges:
Urban Management & Smart Infrastructure
Construtech
Proptech
Resource Efficiency
Smart Homes, Buildings & Retail Properties
Home Care & Assisted Living
Customer & Community Experience
Financial Services
If your startup has a new innovative solution that could upgrade city living and you want to test it with industry-leading partners in Lisbon, apply now to SOL Housing.
And to keep updated on SOL projects and other innovation news, subscribe to our newsletter!
