Smart cities Q&A: “Greater democracy will be the legacy of IoT,” says Libelium

Spanish IoT maker Libelium, author of sensors and gateways for smart solutions, is a mainstay in the smart energy and smart cities spaces. Enterprise IoT Insights caught up with the company’s chief executive, Alicia Asín, to discuss dominant and emerging business models in the market. The interview forms part of the wider narrative in a new Enterprise IoT Insights report on smart city funding models, titled How to buy / sell a smart city – procurement models to make every city smart. The full report can be found here ; a webinar on the same subject can be found here. How can medium / small towns get smart, ultimately – so it’s not just about megacities? The size of the city does not matter, the problems are the same: pollution, traffic, mobility, safety, management of public resources. IoT technology allows any municipality to improve the use of public resources and explain to citizens why it is necessary to take certain policies such as restricting traffic in the city centre, selective waste collection or reducing energy consumption.