Fiware4Water, a new H2020 project of research and innovation coordinated by IOW!

FIWARE is an open IT platform which was created under the Public-Private Partnership Program on the Future Internet (FI-PPP) launched by the European Commission in 2011. Since its creation, this community has evolved and turned into a global ecosystem of developers, innovation centers, accelerators, cities, SMEs and startups, in order to facilitate the development of innovative digital solutions.

The FIWARE ecosystem acts as a catalyst for varied economic opportunities, and enables European actors and their international partners to take full advantage of the digital revolution. This is thus the main tool used for Smart Cities initiatives and for the NGI (Next Generation Internet) initiative, because it helps to manage the synergies and interactions of data coming from different sectors.

Regarding the water sector, the IT development of applications and of management tools using Big Data is quite late, especially because it is a very fragmented sector and because some problems are persisting concerning interoperability of systems, data standardization, semantics and exchange formats and systems.

Fiware4Water (FIWARE for the Next Generation Internet Services for the WATER sector) therefore aims at demonstrating the feasibility of linking the water sector to the FIWARE IT platform. Some interfaces and tools will be developed for the benefit of all end users in the water sector: cities, water producers and suppliers, SMEs, policy makers, water managers, but also all citizens and consumers.

During the 3 years of the project, a first step will be to test and optimize these tools and interfaces in 4 case studies:

• Water Supply System of the City of Athens (GR),
• Drinking water distribution network of the city of Cannes (FR),
• Amsterdam Wastewater Treatment Plant (NL),
• Smart meters for the citizens of Cranbrook (UK).

In a second phase, the aim will be to inform and involve all potential actors and end-users throughout Europe. This work will be carried out through the creation of 3 networks of actors:

• Municipalities and communities,
• Decision-makers and water managers, particularly through the International Network of Basin Organizations,
• SMEs and developers, by creating a FIWARE Mundus Program.

The project will involve 14 European partners, for a total budget of 5.0M €, including 450K € for IOWater. It will officially start on June 1^st, 2019, for 3 years.

IOWater will coordinate this project and will also be responsible for ensuring the communication and dissemination of results, as well as their exploitation (Value Proposition, Business Model, Operating Plan). Finally, IOWater will be in charge of creating and animating the network of decision makers and water managers.