Ministry of state research: plans for smart cities

During his speech at the 2nd Cyprus Forum Cities in Limassol, Nicodemos Damianou, the deputy minister of research, innovation, and digital policy, provided insight into the government's expansive goals to bring Cyprus into the era of smart cities.

Damianou drew attention to the technological gap that currently exists in Cyprus and emphasised the necessity of a strong infrastructure to facilitate joint efforts by the public sector, business community, and government in promoting innovative ecosystems and solutions.

Damianou introduced the Smart Cyprus project, which is based on platform economics, to address this issue directly. "Through the Smart Cyprus project, we're creating a comprehensive strategy for implementing smart city solutions across the island, providing a technological framework, a platform, wherein smart city solutions can organically integrate," he said.

The project intends to standardise current smart city initiatives between local governments, with an initial emphasis on three essential solutions: smart parking, smart lighting, and smart waste collection management. Damianou stressed the project's focus on the needs of the citizenry, emphasising the creation of a mobile application that facilitates easy communication between residents and local government agencies. Further services are planned for progressive integration.

The project, which has €35 million in funding from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, is presently in the tendering stage, with a mid-May deadline. By 2026, at the latest, it is intended to have at least 120,000 smart sensors installed and connected to the central smart cities platform.

Simultaneously, Damianou acknowledged Cyprus's historic accomplishment of achieving 100% population coverage with 5G networks, positioning it at the forefront of European countries. He additionally disclosed plans to put up a massive fibre network throughout remote and rural areas, guaranteeing universal access and promoting involvement in the digital economy.

"We aim to wrap up the fibre optic project by 2025, cementing Cyprus's status as a pioneer in comprehensive ultra-high-speed connectivity," he stated.

Damianou underlined the value of innovation and research, praising Cyprus's seven Centres of Excellence and its esteemed research institutions for their contributions to the development of digital twin technologies, smart transport, water management, geosensing, and environmental monitoring.

"Our smart cities agenda and investment in innovative technologies form part of a broader initiative to redevelop the country's digital infrastructure and modernise state services, enhancing citizen-government interactions," he stated.

In order to do this, Damianou presented the Ministry of State's flagship project, the Digital Citizen project, which aims to progressively integrate a range of digital services supported by artificial intelligence digital assistant and e-signature solutions. Furthermore, he mentioned the continuous improvement of the Hippodamus system at the Department of Urban Planning, which enables more efficient administration of building permit and planning applications for the new Provincial Authorities.