Second Italian city to go smart, sustainable

The Italian city of Reggio Emilia is enlisting IBM’s help in its efforts to become a sustainable city.

IBM has already begun working with another town in Italy — Parma — on a similar project.

Reggio Emilia and IBM plan to create an Innovation Board that will use digital technology to design a new model for a sustainable city. The town of some 165,500 people hopes to use citizen-focused initiatives to find ways to optimise resources, improve services and make the city smarter and more efficient.

One of the first projects, a pilot called “Classroom 2.0,” will bring together local school students, teachers, parents and local companies in a collaboration platform for interacting and exchanging information.

Reggio Emilia’s plans fit with IBM’s vision for a Smarter Planet that infuses intelligence into world systems, processes and infrastructure to provide a better quality of life for its inhabitants.