Gemalto Wins Pan-European Award of Excellence for Enabling NFC Smart Cities

Gemalto announced that the Smart Urban Spaces (SUS) project has won the Information Technology for European Advancement Award of Excellence for enabling contactless smart cities through the rollout of NFC context-based services.

This project is part of EUREKA, a pan-European initiative uniting 38 member countries with the shared goal to support companies and research institutes in transnational R&D projects. The project was developed by a Gemalto-led consortium of 20+ partners from all over Europe, and aims at introducing interoperable e-city services based on the latest mobile technologies and ubiquitous mobile computing techniques.

Smart Urban Spaces provides software building blocks and service management platforms for urban applications such as public transportation, day care, smart billboards, event information and taxi fare payment. Some 35 NFC pilot applications have been developed across 11 cities members of the consortium, including Bilbao, Caen, Helsinki, Oulu, Sevilla and Valencia.

As an example, the city of Caen is using Gemalto’s Allynis Trusted Service Management (TSM) service for its NFC mobile ticketing program launched in June 2013.

“Gemalto is honored to be at the heart of the Smart Urban Spaces project and contributing its expertise in securing contactless applications and servicing platforms,” said Philippe Cambriel, Gemalto president for Europe, Mediterranean and CIS. “SUS brings together top-tier industrial players, small and medium-sized enterprises, academics and user organizations from all countries to put Europe at the forefront of developing digital cities of the future.”

The SUS project has been sponsored by the Public Authorities of Finland, France and Spain. Partners include: AICIA, Applicam, Avanzis, Bonwal, CBT, CEV Group, City of Bilbao, City of Caen, City of Gijon, City of Helsinki, City of Oulu, City of Paterna, City of Pobla de Vallbona, City of Saint-Lô, City of Seville, City of Valencia, CreativIT, ESI Tecnalia, Euskatel, Fara, Forum Virium, Gemalto, Intelligéré, NXP Semiconductors FR, Okode, Palma Tools, Province of Guizpuzcoa, Telvent/ARCE, Thales, Top-Tunniste, Uni of Bordeaux 1 (LABRI), Uni of Caen (PRINT), Visual Tools, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and WhileOnTheMove.