Las Condes’ Journey to Becoming a Smart City

Welcome, I'm joined with Daniela Peñaloza Ramos, Mayor of Las Condes in Chile and we're going to talk about their project, their smart city project. So first of all, can you introduce yourself and Las Condes? Hi, thanks for this interview. It's an honor to be here with you. We are in the middle of this journey to become a smart city. As Paradox always say, a smart city is not a box, it's not something close, it's a journey. So the city of Las Condes is in that process that we began, I think, about five years ago. And the way that we see a smart city is not just like a tool or a gadget or a pool of technology, more than like an estrategia. that we want to plan the city, see the city, and mainly maybe the way that we want to connect with people. The focus on a smart city, at least for us in Las Condes municipality, is to be the first one, the first city in Chile and the first city in metropolitan region that is the one that concentrates most part of the population, the Chilean population. to be the first one to put technology in the way to make people's life more dignity and to hide the quality of life for the neighbourhoods well you started with a smart streetlight project in 2018 who were your technology partners for this project and can you tell us about it yes our partner is Paradox Engineer, and they're still our main partner. We began this in 2018, and the first step that we made was to replace all the public lightings. We are talking about 45,000 public lightings. And this could sound very simple or logic. It was for us the main step. Why? Because we didn't have, at that point, the structure to build this network that will allow now to sensorize the whole city. So, when we changed the public lighting to the LED ones, the one that we have now, and we changed all these 45 ,000 public lightings, what we are building... years ago was the new structure and the correct structure thinking in the next step and the next step was to sensorize the whole city and but that way to become a smart city so streetlights gave you the chance to start to become and to start bringing smart city technology yes yes well When we move to the traditional lights, to the LED ones, we are not only thinking on to be more sustainable, and as well we reduce some important costs, 25 % of our costs were reduced by this change to LED technology. And all that money, now we are reinvesting in other sustainable projects, but the main idea behind this replacement. of the lightings, of the public lightings, were to build this structure, strong structure that able us to connect. First, to put all the sensors, so that allows to sensorize the whole city. And with all the sensors that we have through the city, now we can collect data and take decisions thanks to the data analysis. That is maybe the main point of Smart Cities, to collect data. analyze the data, and make maybe the best decisions. What we think is that a smart city, as I said before, is not just a tool or a gadget, it's a strategy. And smart cities can be developed only if we are able to design public policy based on data. That's the main point of our whole project and becoming a smart city. So your projects are smart street lighting, also sensors. What projects are you developing? I already talked to you about the public lighting. In that area, we are not just change to let technology and allow us to reduce cost and that 25% of the- budget that we are reinventing in other sustainable actions. As well to have this led structure allow us to be the first city not just in Chile but also in Latin America to connect with Cerro Dominador. It's a solar plant installed in the north of the country that provides us clean energy and the whole day so we are just we are not just talking about new technology but as well we are talking about to be like free clients and that means that we are connected to the solar plant the bigger solar plant in in Chile and in Latin America and that can give us green energy the whole day the whole day sorry the other example of sensorization that we have in the city is the traffic control ones that allow us to sensorize and to monitor and analyze all the congestion in the streets in Las Condes streets And that information allows us to take better decisions and to inform citizens about those traffics in order for them to make better decisions and reduce time in moving from work to home. And what is the scale of the project? Is it mainly around the centre? Is it… It depends… It depends on… which project for example the the lighting it's in is across the whole city all our public lightings are now sensorized we have most of the sensors in the light pole so we have the traffic ones that are in the main streets of the city as well we have some environmental sensors allow us to control is not control knowing about air pollution noises levels and in the in the sustainable development like area or topic is important what we are able to do in terms of in terms of water why chile is facing the major drought in the history so we have started introducing Internet of Things in our parks irrigation system in order to know all the leaks situation but remotely so we can control these leaks in remotely way in order to respond and take care of this drought situation that we are living in Chile, especially in our city Las Condes and we are also for the future we are studying the possibility of integrating our garbage collection to a sensorized system. And the last example that I want to give you about sensorization system is the one that is related to public security. This is really important for us because security is the main concern for people. So IoT has also been fundamental in this area. We have a network of 1,900 cameras. across a whole city in the different neighborhoods. Each camera has an analytical software that allow us to recognize more than 50 situations leading to crimes. This information allow us to have like an early alert that we can relate to the work that police is doing in the territory and by With this kind of technology and early alerts we can provide a more secure municipality or city, giving also these tools to each different neighbourhood. And also the citizens can check this camera through different devices, smart cell phones or other devices. So they also feel that they can... this information and decide the base the best way to approach to their homes so in terms of security IOT has been a really good partner as well the technology I mean and with a difficult economic situation in Chile and the rumors of worldwide recession yes are you still looking to invest in smart city applications that's a great question because for many years have always we have to explain always why we decide to invest something in one area against the other ones so as I said we are living this security crisis and it's really for that people ask me why we are still investing in technology and smart solutions and the point is that it's a it's a child challenge for us, for me as a major, is a challenge to explain clearly to the community that investing in technology or smart solutions is the best way or maybe is the best box where you can invest. I want to provide a more secure municipality, a more secure city. And the way that we can do now, and the way that we can do that now, is to invest in smart solutions. technology and of course we are keeping and we are we are keep working in that partnership and that approach great thank you so much for this interview and for answering all our questions we're really looking forward to see what last on this has in store in the future what's going to happen what new is going to be coming so thank you so much thank you and keep up with current insights to see more stories like this You