Thanks to the “Metropolitan Solutions” fair, Berlin is the capital of ideas for smart cities at the moment. Urban experts from all over the world are gathering in the German capital to discuss the needs and barriers for a smart and sustainable urban development, as well as potential technological solutions. It is therefore the perfect time and place to launch a tool that helps urban decision-makers to choose hich technologies offer the maximal environmental and economic benefit for their city in the future: the City Performance Tool (CyPT) by Siemens.
Although it is normally not easy to convince a selected crowd of urban experts to leave a fair for another evening event, this time it was different: equipped with a spectacular view from the riverside of the river Spree, the launch venue was actually a great place to while away the evening. A big red buzzer on the stage indicated that something important was about to happen.
As the buzzer was pushed by Pedro Miranda (Siemens Corporate Vice President), and the CyPT was officially launched with a visually convincing video of sustainable urban technologies.
The CyPT uses exclusive Siemens data to help cities estimate how much CO2-emissions can be saved by up to 73 transport, building and energy technologies, for instance. Additionally, it provides insights on potential air quality improvement and job creation. And it can calculate data up to 25 years in the future.
Some cities have already worked on pilot studies with Siemens using the CyPT: These cities are Munich, Vienna, London, Bedford (Massachusetts), Riverside (California) and Nanjing. Siemens is already engaged with 17 cities in deploying the CyPT, for example Copenhagen and other cities in Asia and United States. Many other cities have also shown interest.
After Pedro Miranda ended his speech with the sentence “Better cities lead to better lives”, Cornelia Yzer (Senator for Economics, Technology and Research, Berlin) took to the stage, admitting that Berlin should be on the list of CyPT cities as well. “Both politics and industry need to meet the challenge [of the global urbanization process]. We have to rethink the concept of providing urban infrastructures and we have to offer ecological solutions”. Furthermore she pointed out how important it is that Siemens, as a German industry leader, is showing the way towards prospering and liveable smart cities.
Shortly before the formal part of the evening ended, Pedro Miranda came back on stage to announce that thanks to the CyPT and its development team, Global Program Manager Klaus Heidinger and Research Expert Dr. Katrin Müller, Siemens now holds another official U.S. patent.
After the official program, visitors had the chance to visit the CyPT booth at the venue and learn more about how the CyPT works.
