To achieve mainstream adoption, IOTA is launching a series of smart city trials in 2018. In February this year, the IOTA Foundation reached a milestone by announcing a partnership with the Taipei City Government, the capital of Taiwan, in support of its smart city goals.
With the partnership, many proof of concept projects will be explored under Taipei City’s “Smart City Living Lab”. The first project will be the utilization of IOTA’s Tangle ID service for its Digital Citizen Card service, in collaboration with local startup BiiLabs. It will improve data security and integrity in the delivery of public services.
With IOTA’s secure distributed ledger technology, the project will help Taipei City’s digital citizen cards from being tampered with. This allows citizens to feel safe when using their cards, without worrying about identity theft or fraud when voting, providing background medical record information, or using other government-related services.
Other projects are underway, in areas ranging from healthcare to data transfers. For example, Taipei City is collaborating with a number of private and public sectors organizations to develop Airbox, a palm-sized air sensor that detects temperature, humidity, light and pollution levels. A number of pilot sensors are deployed throughout Taipei, with the data being collected and shared on IOTA’s Tangle network.
On the partnership with IOTA, Wei-bin Lee, Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology of the Taipei City Government, said:
IOTA is one of the innovative players in the cryptocurrency world because of its unique technology. With Taipei City always thinking ahead and with IOTA’s technology, this partnership is a strategic move to usher in the era of smart cities to the citizens of Taipei. We welcome the IOTA Foundation to Taipei City and are excited to embark on the future together.
David Sønstebø, Co-Founder of the IOTA Foundation, also commented:
We are so excited about teaming up with Taipei City. It proves that our next-generation technology is ready for real-world use cases and is more than just a theory. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of the effect IOTA can have on making the world of IoT ever-more connected and paving the way for not just smart cities, but a smart world.
It is hoped that the partnership with Taipei City can spur new business models and use cases, demonstrating the true value of IOTA’s technology.
