The smart city activities of Riga and the intelligent transport systems devised by Latvia’s state road department are two of the many topics in next week’s “Open Technologies and Smart Solutions” conference. The meeting on 28 January is organised by Latvia’s Open Technology Association (LATA).
The use of open technology and open standards are essential prerequisites for the creation of smart solutions, and key to ensuring interoperability of devices and platforms, emphasises LATA in a conference announcement.
Riga city council member Agris Ameriks will explain what Riga has accomplished so far, and present the city’s future plans. A second presentation, byIT manager Boris Jeļisejevs, details the Latvian State Roads’ Intelligent Transport System. The goal of this traffic information project is to increase the efficiency and safety of transport.
“The LATA conference is about sharing knowledge, and for discussing smart technologies that emphasise security, privacy, data storage and ICT management aspects”, says LATA’s conference organiser Ieva Vītolina. She expects the conference to attract some 200 participants. “The target groups include ICT experts and policy makers, researchers, and public administrations.”
LATA will also announce the winner of the ‘Most Open Institution’ award. Nominees include the Open Data Pilot of the city of Riga. The city is making available sets of open data on its opendata.riga.lv portal. Another candidate is the Latvian University Library, involved in the OpenAire project, in which universities and research centres from across Europa promote open access to research publications and data.