Smart Cities Course

The “Smart Cities Course” is the joint activity for students in the KIC InnoEnergy’s master programme “Energy for Smart Cities”, celebrated every year for one week in November, and happening from 15 to 23 November 2014 in Barcelona.
This year a total of 33 master students will work together in innovation in Energy and Smart Cities: 25 first year students and 8 second year, studying at KU Leuven, KTH or UPC.

The programme offers students to visit the industry, attend the Smart City Expo & World Congress (SCEWC), a communication & leadership workshop, a regular work group, an Innovation Competition and social activities to get together and explore the city.

Download the programme

The week’s course will start smoothly on Saturday the 15th at 21h with a “Tapas&Cava” welcome dinner at TWENTYTU hostel.

On Sunday the 16th in the morning Mar Martinez will introduce the week and the work group gets organised. Before lunch, the architect responsible of TWENTYTU will explain what makes this a Hi-tech hostel and unique building in Barcelona. In the afternoon,students will enjoy a communication & leadership workshop. Did they ever imagined themselves doing a TEDtalk? They’ll learn how to do it for real.

From Monday to Thursday the students will explore what they know and what they don’t know about Energy and Smart Cities. Visits to companies and the talks and exhibitors in the Smart City Expo and World Congress will enlighten them. They will also learn about what problems and challenges are being faced. The scheduled visits cover multidisciplinary and cross-sectorial areas such as: electric mobility, urban waste management, innovation in public services, district heating, energy efficiency and integration of renewables in buildings, big data, public transport,  electric and hybrid vehicles, smart grids and storage. The following companies and stakeholders will welcome the students: UBASER, ICAEN, DISTRICLIMA, COMSA-EMTE, EVERIS, TMB and ENDESA.

The attendance to the exhibition will enlighten the students with Energy talks by international speakers. Also other relevant areas as transport or governance will be presented and discussed. In adittion, the exposition will offer students the posibility to contact companies and projects. (recently updated SCEWC programme).

From Thursday to Saturday students will be working per groups in priority challenges. They will dive into a creativity process that will bring up innovation from them and all the inputs they have gathered during the exploration days. “Innovation happens with the right ingredients”! Finally, on Saturday the group will celebrate an Innovation Competition with a Jury with industry representatives. Each work group will present their innovation in a creative way.

The students’ social agenda will include an Urban game and a cultural City tour in Barcelona. Spare time will leave room for improvisation and more surprises.

After this joint week course students will be able to:

• provide an overview of what are Smart Cities and what are the Energy priorities for Cities.r
• refer to existing Smart Cities projects and innovative products and services.
• know current innovative products and services and be able to discuss about their impact and benefits for the market and for society.
• prioritize energy challenges for industry current products and services, according to market & societal needs.
• reproduce an innovation process, individually or in group, where it is key to: identify the challenge/problem, define the real problem, brainstorm about new solutions and learning from others, check with real users/companies, developing/prototyping the solution, presenting/testing it and proposing it to other stakeholders.
• be aware of the innovation gap and the technology transfer skills to bring  innovation/demo projects to market.
• identify the values that motivate change for more Energy Efficient and Sustainable Cities. Communicate from the “why” and deliver effective talks.

• 5 PhD students, from the KIC PhD module Smart and Efficient Buildings and Cities, and the deputy coordinator of the track will join us for some days of this week. Also 1 PhD student from KTH will join for the whole week. Teachers and other master students from UPC are also expected to attend the exhibition.
• An Alumni weekend event, the first of its kind, will make it possible that 5 Alumni of the programme coming from France and Belgium will join during the dinner on Friday the 21st and stay for the activities of Saturday.
• During the whole week the students will have the support and guidance of one coach expert in innovation and technology transfer

Barcelona will be the City and will become for one week a real innovation lab for our students. The TWENTUTY Hi-tech hostel will be their home and headquarters.

All first-years register this course in their academic record as: Hands-on integrated Project on Innovative Energy Systems, part 1. The evaluation of the course will be based upon their participation in the week and the delivery of a report per limited groups within one month deadline after the end of the week.
For second-years at KTH, this course is integrated as part of the course MJ2685 Smart Cities and Climate Mitigation Strategies and after the participation in the week no written report is foreseen. For second-years at KU Leuven and UPC, the feedback and evaluation of the week will be coordinated with the master thesis supervisor or university coordinator.