21c braved the cold Finnish weather to help launch our new EU CIP project EPIC – European Platform for Intelligent Cities, in conjunction with the Commissions Smart Cities conference. On the 16 and 17 November, Julia Glidden and Susie Ruston joined partners including IBM, IBBT, Birmingham City University, ENoLL, National Technical University of Athens, Navidis, and Athens Technology Centre amongst others, in a two day project kick off meeting. Julia at the EPIC meeting in Helsinki As the key contributor to the development of the original project proposal, 21c was particularly pleased to see EPIC become a reality. Our idea was to uniquely combine innovation ecosystem processes, fully researched and tested e-Government service applications and new cloud computing technologies to create the first truly scalable and flexible pan-European platform for innovative, user-driven public service delivery.In so doing, EPIC will present public administrations with a unique opportunity to cut costs and drive innovation by providing access to a market-leading shared infrastructure that facilitates rapid prototyping and testing. EPIC will provide added-value to cities
by meeting their need to migrate to a ‘smart,’ industrial strength web-based service delivery infrastructure in a scalable and cost-efficient manner, and to easily access innovative new applications from across Europe. EPIC will also provide added-value to citizens and business by meeting their increasing desire to access localised, user-centred government services that are on a par with other private sector offerings i.e. quicker, faster, and more personalised.21c heads up the dissemination and exploitation workpackage for EPIC, so if you’d like further information on this initiative please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@21cConsultancy.com