EarlyBirds, the Australian company that operates the Early Birds Open Innovation Ecosystem, a business to business (B2B) platform that enables innovators, early adopters, and subject matter experts (SMEs) to get together and push for technology advancement, explains that smart cities are the future, including extremely innovative Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. All these are based on the concept of smart homes and buildings that employ automated processes to monitor and control a home or building’s operations, including heating, air conditioning, lighting, ventilation, security, irrigation and other systems, without human intervention.

A smart home and building is equipped with sensors, microchips, and actuators, in order to gather data and manage it according to the homeowner’s preferences or a business’ functions and services. The result is that property owners and facility managers are able to boost asset reliability and performance, which minimizes energy use, decreases the environmental impact of buildings, and optimizes how space is used.

At a larger scale, these smart homes and smart buildings are “living organisms” that are linked through a network with adaptable and intelligent software. Basically, smart homes and buildings make the occupants more productive through optimized control of lighting, air quality, physical security, thermal comfort, sanitation and more at reduced costs and environmental impact compared to traditional homes and buildings that are not connected.

At present, smart office buildings, hospitals, educational facilities, health care facilities, stadiums and many other kinds of smart buildings already exist in various parts of the world. While, at the moment, there is no one set of standards for a smart home or building, they are all integrated or connected. For instance, such buildings and homes have “smart” technology that automatically connects them to a smart power grid.

Smart buildings and home offer the advantage of better efficiency and productivity through innovation. These include enhanced sustainability, energy savings, enhanced productivity of facility staff, improved decision-making across the organization, and better building operations. The intelligent software used in smart homes and buildings are able to “learn and adapt” as it gets more information about various aspects of building automation. For instance, it is able to eventually find the most efficient way of managing the air conditioning system for the home or a particular area in a building based on how people use the home or building.

When a city has smart homes, buildings and infrastructure, it is transformed into a smart city, allowing municipal governments to take advantage of cellular and low power wide area network (LPWAN) wireless technologies. This results in enhanced efficiency, convenience, infrastructure, and quality of life for both city residents and visitors.

The framework for a smart city is the IoT, which is an intelligent network of connected machines and objects that transmit data using wireless technology and the cloud. Cloud-based IoT applications receive, evaluate, and manage data in real-time to assist city residents, businesses, and municipalities make better decisions that boost people’s quality of life. People utilize their smartphones and mobile devices to interact with the smart city ecosystems with the result that communities can enjoy better energy distribution, reduced traffic congestion, streamline trash collection, and enhanced air quality with help from the IoT.

All these innovations of the future can be assisted by the EarlyBirds open innovation ecosystem that can play a vital role in the development of business applications and their implementation in the workplace through the IT infrastructure. Being a B2B platform, businesses are able to find innovators for IT technologies. In addition, the subject matter experts (SMEs) can provide advice as consultants to assist the businesses in adapting new technology.

The EarlyBirds open innovation ecosystem also operates SME assisted initiatives, which are the Explorer and Challenger programs. The Explorer program is designed to assist in the innovation for the whole organisation as a service and has several features, such as: a nominated SME for the business; regular webinars to help stimulate innovation in the organisation; quarterly and monthly innovation days; a platform enterprise license; and a focus on specific innovations. The Challenger program is designed for those who want to focus on solving one specific issue, at a time, for the organisation.

Organizations interested in how the Early Birds Marketplace can help in business innovation can check out the EarlyBirds website at earlybirds.io, or contact them on the telephone or through email