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The City of Parma and IBM Cooperate to Develop a Smarter City


WEBWIRE

Italian City to Develop an Intelligent and Sustainable Model for New and Improved Services for Citizens

PARMA, ITALY and ARMONK, NY - The city of Parma has entered into a strategic initiative with IBM (NYSE: IBM) with the aim of creating a Smart City. IBM consultants will serve on an Innovation Board to identify and design a new model for a sustainable city through a range of digital solutions.

Parma is a modern city, home to approximately 200,000 people, and famous for its culture, art and food. The city’s management is planning citizen-focused innovations that will provide new “intelligence” for existing infrastructure to optimize resources, reduce traffic congestion, improve services to citizens and businesses and make the city smarter and more efficient.

Parma’s strategy matches IBM’s vision of a Smarter Planet, infusing intelligence into the world’s systems, processes and infrastructure and providing a better quality of life for people living and working in a smart city. This means a systemic and open approach, with new intelligence through innovative IBM solutions designed with and for Parma.

“This strategic initiative, signed with IBM, allows us to create an Innovation Board,” said Pietro Vignali, Parma Mayor. “This Board has the mission of finding innovative citizen services solutions leveraging new technologies: from info-mobility to security, to social services. We are the first town in Italy to engage in this initiative with IBM and this puts Parma in the network of Europe’s most innovative capitals, like Stockholm and London.”

Elsewhere, IBM is working with many other authorities on smarter systems. The cities of Singapore, Brisbane and Stockholm are all working to reduce both congestion and pollution through intelligent transport solutions.

In Malta, a new smart grid utilities system is being created and implemented by IBM to enable more efficient consumption of energy and water and completely transform the relationship between Maltese consumers and utilities suppliers.

These solutions, and many more, are making a real impact today -- the first step towards creating a true smart city.

“It is vital for the future that we transform our cities into accessible, dynamic, thriving communities,” said Luciano Martucci, General Manager IBM Italy. “In cities like Parma, technology can make the local systems and infrastructure smarter and create benefits directly related toward improving the quality of life for all its citizens, in a cost-effective way.”

Initial projects in Parma include a virtual teller in several locations around the city. Citizens will be able to interact with the municipality as if there were a municipal official in front of them, delivering and receiving documents and cheques, filling in and signing forms, and requesting support.

Parma is one of 6 Italian Cities which have agreed on a common protocol on IT innovation, and is the first to initiate the project.

For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services.



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