The main goal of the conference is to present to citizens the CEKOM product intended for them, because citizens’ participation in the smart city system is one of the most important roles for the good functioning of a smart city.

The conference is attended by representatives of project partners who present smart products and services, applications and platforms that are being developed as part of CEKOM, and they include innovative solutions in the fields of traffic and mobility in urban areas, city and citizen safety, development of tourist destinations, energy efficiency and smart waste management.

The promotor of the CEKOM project is the company Smart RI, founded by the City of Rijeka, which thus wants to encourage citizens to become active participants in the smart city movement, under the assumption that a person living in a city, through everyday situations that they encounter, can have a better insight into problems prevailing in their quarters, community and city, on the whole.

On the occasion of the conference inauguration at RiHub, the director of the Smart RI company, Nenad Antolović, emphasised the importance of interacting with citizens so that their suggestions and opinions could be implemented in a further process of research and development of projects of the Competence Centre for Smart Cities.

“Citizens’ opinions will be used to improve product performance and determine a future direction of the development of Rijeka as a smart, digital, ready and open city,” said Antolović, adding that the Smart RI website also had a questionnaire through which citizens had an opportunity to learn about the project and give their opinion about project products and services. “Citizens’ involvement enables a better understanding and reflection of the future, better planning of city development and is the right way to achieve urban transformation towards a smart and sustainable city. The result of the involvement of citizens is a strengthened community, better services intended specifically for them, and also the creation of a higher level of trust in city services,” said Antolović.

CEKOM for smart cities is an innovation cluster in which 20 partners cooperate, and the objective of the project is to improve the activities of public administration, utility companies, transport infrastructure and mobility, ecology and city security through 36 innovative digital solutions.

It is currently the largest development project in Croatia related to information technology aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens.

The conference participants were addressed by the mayor of Rijeka Marko Filipović who gave an opening speech, pointing out that the CEKOM project had resulted in numerous ideas, programmes and projects with the aim of raising the quality of life of citizens, and that apart from professionals it was important to hear the opinion of citizens, end users of services. “Conferences like this are an opportunity to hear and see first-hand the most modern approaches to solving problems faced by many cities, including Rijeka. The largest Croatian and even international IT companies are included in this project, and some of them have recently opened their offices in Rijeka, which shows that Rijeka is a city where it pays off to live, invest and do business, and I believe that the implementation of this project has partly contributed to it. Although on more occasions Rijeka has already been declared the most transparent city in Croatia, in the future we should continue to work on it, and include the utility companies of the City of Rijeka in order to raise this all to an even higher level”, said the mayor and concluded by adding that there were no smart cities without active citizens included.

In a series of dynamic lectures and panels at the conference, the challenges were presented that all urban areas face today, as well as CEKOM’s products and services that are the answer to these challenges.

One of the lectures on the experiences of the most digitally ready city was also held by representatives of the City of Rijeka. They presented online services of the City of Rijeka available to citizens and the manner in which citizens can include in decision-making, as well as ways of online communication with citizens. The information services of the City of Rijeka were also presented, and the Incubator for creative technologies and the IT industry – Energana (power plant) were also presented.

In addition to the company Smart RI owned by the City of Rijeka, as the project promotor and consortium manager, the partners in this project are the University of Rijeka, Ericsson Nikola Tesla, Hrvatski Telekom, Combis, Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar, 3t cable, Alarm automatika, Elektrokovina Plus, Energo, Exevio, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Opatija, iOLAP Inc., Vodovod i kanalizacija, Creative Department, Maritime Faculty in Rijeka, Rijeka Plus, Apsolon, Smart Sense and SmartIS.

The CEKOM project is the result of the joint application and development of six research and development projects by 20 partners based following the Invitation – Support for the Development of Competence Centres under the Operational Programme Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020.

The total project value amounts to HRK 149,631,384.15, of which the amount of HRK 95,357,525.75 is co-financed by the European Union. Its duration is from 1 March 2020 to 1 March 2023.

Prior to the beginning of the conference, an exhibition dedicated to the project Competence Centre for Smart Cities was inaugurated on the panels on Korzo to inform the citizens about this project.

CEKOM’s technical coordinator for smart cities, Damir Medved, explained the importance of citizens’ involvement so that products that are in the development phase and do not have their functionality checked with end users – citizens, are very likely to fail. “For this reason, the possibility for citizens to test certain products and services in advance and give their opinion about them enables the product development process to be shorter, more efficient and more economical,” concluded Medved.