IoT from a human view

In this episode we focus on the human side of IoT. Magnus Fransson is responsible for internationalization at IoT Sweden. Magnus met up with Robert Lann, at the techcompany Sensative in Lund, to talk about how we as humans can benefit from the IoT deployment and usage in our cities.

Produced by: Magnus Fransson

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hi and welcome to yet another podcastfrom IoT Sweden,
the Swedish Innovation Programmewith a mission to use IoT technology
for managing societal challengesto improve quality of life,
create inclusive societiesand to build a sustainable welfare
for Sweden and for the world.In today's podcast,

(00:26):
we will focus on the human side of IoT,how we as humans can benefit
from the IoT deploymentand usage in our cities.
The cities where the majorityof the world's population live today,
and where many societal challengescan be found.
My name is Magnus Fransson,and I am responsible

(00:46):
for helping all our projectsand companies to be global.
And I would like to start a little bit with…Go back in history a little bit.
Not so long ago, the telephonesand their connecting telecom systems

(01:08):
were considered by faras the largest globally connected
and interoperable machine or system.IoT or Internet of Things
is already a much larger system.Today, around 15 billion IoT devices
are connected, expected to double by 2030.As a comparison,

(01:30):
the number of smartphone subscriptionstoday globally is roughly 7 billion,
and there is no obvious limitationwith technology anymore.
Continued growth and success for IoTis based on totally
other factors, on standardisation.So these connected ports can interoperate.

(01:51):
And because standardisation is a fundamentfor economies of scale,
better, cheaper and more cost effective.And for small markets
such as the Swedish market, our companies,our Swedish companies and entrepreneurs
need bigger marketplaces to grow onwith such a small market in Sweden.

(02:11):
Global standard can fix that,and it all leads to
a very positive spiral,growing market means more investors,
more research, and more diversity.In all, very positive.
Another important success factoris market growth itself.
The usage, implementation,and adoption of IoT based services
is growing and appreciated by the many.But for this, we need maybe

(02:35):
the most significant success factor,human acceptance.
It is not enough that it works.We need to appreciate it as well.
Maybe also to change our behaviourwith IoT related technology.
Moving fast forwardlike artificial intelligence,
AI, quantum computing, automationand robotisation, the IoT domain

(02:57):
holds a lot of excitingand promising possibilities
for mankind, but it also containsdilemmas and challenges.
In this context,tech development is important,
but not the issue, maybe.There is no clear limit any longer
for what we seem to be able to achieve.The question is
what do we want to do withall these possibilities.

(03:19):
With his human perspective,with societal city challenges
and a human view in mind,I can really not sit on my own
and reason as I just did.But to make this as concrete
as handsome as possible,I’ve invited Robert Lann
from Sensative, a Swedish tech company.So welcome, Robert.

(03:43):
I sit here in Lund in your premises,Sensative premises.
But please tell us a little bitabout yourself and Sensative.
Thank you, Magnus.And maybe perhaps it's me
who should say welcome.Welcome to Lund.
it's a beautiful, sunny spring day,and the asparagus is just popping up

(04:06):
right now as we speak in the field.So it's great to be on the podcast
and great having you here at Sensative.-I love asparagus,
it looks like, sensors, maybe.-Yeah, in some form, perhaps.
I just chopped down the three first,from the coming batches.

(04:28):
So Sensative isa tech company.
We're ten years old,and we are around 30 people.
It's like a one office kind of company.Of course, we have agents
and sell stuff, around.But we're…

(04:48):
We're a Lund-based company.And we are a tech company.
We're engineers,most of us here at Sensative.
We have two different product areas.One is that we
design, develop and produceour own line of sensors,

(05:09):
which we sell on a global market.Typically, you know,
being in use by other platforms,not our own.
So it's an important market for us,the sensor market.
But the other half of what we dois our platform, Yggio,
which is where I predominantly work,in a smart city context.

(05:36):
You would describe Yggioas sort of an oil rig
that the data is, of course, the oil.And you're the rig.
Of course, if you… I mean,data is…
Oil is somethingthat you pick up from the ground
and then burn up, right?And it evaporates and becomes CO2
instead, whilst data is somethingthat you pick up

(05:59):
and then store, right.And it can be reused again if you so wish.
Well, I understand what you mean.-Eternal digital life.
Yeah, I read an articlewhich says that 95% of the gathered data
from these 15 billion sensorsyou mentioned
is actually not being in use,which is a bit of a downer, right?

(06:23):
We could use the data more efficientlyif we choose to do so.
I just want to compliment a little bit on…I mean, when we got here,
it's a fantastic environmentyou have here.
Okay, not a very small company,but a growing, fast-growing company.

(06:43):
But still you're in ittogether as a team.
You have the software and hardwareand you do the test.
And have this fantastic point in timewhere you still have
full control of the company.-Everything is under one roof
and it's a great company to be at.It's a good atmosphere

(07:05):
and, you know, very, very skilled staff,on board at Sensative
which makes it,you know, quite fun to be here.
It's challenging, of course,being a growing company
with all what that,you know, implies, in terms of,
you know, big company structuresand processes and stuff like that.
But it's a very entrepreneurial kind ofapproach here.

(07:29):
And everybody chips in big timeat the company. So it's great to be here.
I mentioned in the beginning here about,sort of societal challenges
and maybe that in a way, citiesare a way to sort of concentrate
these societal challenges,because that's where we people,
a lot of people live.We live there.

(07:50):
And they will face a lot ofdifferent types of societal challenges,
some of them to do withthe climate changes, of course,
but there are other typesof challenges, a growing ageing population.
There are a couple of sort ofglobal things that drive us.
And sometimes I look… I thinkit must be really tough

(08:11):
to be a major today and to reallyor you're interested in digitalisation
and what that could mean to youand to help your population.
But are you really,or is it just something
that you say toattract the votes
for the upcoming election?I do see still,

(08:33):
sort of a lack of deeper insightsand skills and competencies
in the upper managementin municipalities today.
It's getting there.but perhaps quite not yet there yet.
In some municipalities, ITand digitalisation is seen as some,
you know, it's beside the point,the important stuff happens

(08:56):
in the different lines of businessesand you IT-guys do what you do,
But it's shifting.And there is a generation shift
going on in municipalitiesfor the better, I think.
I think a lot of majors in Sweden, we call themkommunstyrelsens ordförande.
It's a very Swedish title.But city majors,

(09:18):
they really love their cities,and really want their city
to grow and prosper. And in a way,there is a sort of competition
between cities in Swedenthat…
that they need to be aware of.And a lot of Swedish cities…
We have 290 of them just in Sweden,in Europe there are

(09:40):
tens of thousands of cities.So, a big market.
I think they really love their citiesIn general sense, and…
But they need help.-Yeah. Of course, they need help,
not only from technology,but, you know, from the way we organise

(10:01):
and structure our citiesand societies today.
Just to give you a background,because the topic for this pod is
human aspects ofthe IoT world and
you are now visiting a very tech-orientedcompany with a lot of engineers.

(10:21):
So… But just togive you a background.
I've been workingin public organisations
for over a decade.I was for five years at the city of Malmö
of the Central Digitalisation department,talking about, you know,
how to help our different departments,to, you know, use technology

(10:43):
in a proper, long-term,lasting kind of way.
So back in 2016-17…
It's not so long ago really,but in the IoT world,
that's a long time.But we did the digital agenda

(11:06):
for the city of Malmö, got,you know, decided in…
What do you call it in English?Kommunstyrelsen.
Yeah, in the upper managementgot decided
and one of the parts of that…-The city council, maybe?
Yeah.-Sort of city council.
But one part of that agendawas the Smart City context.

(11:28):
So I started to elaborate with,we were seven different departments
starting to talk about Smart Cityand what it meant and what it is.
And we could noticefrom the Central Department
that there were a number ofsort of IoT related projects ongoing,
out in the departments.And the question that pops up then is,

(11:53):
okay, from a central standpoint,should we support these departments
with a central IoT capabilityin order to gain control
over security aspects,information security aspects,
and just the pure solid smartnessof having one approach
instead of 57.So we decided to

(12:18):
start working in that field.And I got some time
to really work on the architectural part,both the technical architecture,
but also the structureand the organisation of things
within the IT departmentand how we work with it

(12:40):
together with the different departments.But from the technical standpoint,
I also made it very clearwhat I, you know,
thought that an IoT platform shouldhave inside itself
and what should not be insideof an IoT platform
within a municipality.Because we already had

(13:02):
a number of different other capabilities,you know, of course, like networks
and data warehouse.We were fiddling around
with not AI perhaps,but BI, and, of course, you have the webs
and you have the different linesof business systems
and so forth and open dataand so forth.
So in that context, I started to lookfor a suitable platform

(13:24):
that, you know,matched with that blueprint we made.
And I actually live in Lundand I didn't know of Sensative.
So I met them in a finance projectby IoT Sweden.
Smart public spaces,which we…
It was a joint project, Malmö and Lund,and I got to know

(13:47):
Sensative and our CO, Mats,and found that we, you know,
more or less exactlyshared the view on how to go
about working with IoT,how to do, you know, open, modular,
kind of approach with IoT.So, said and done,
we purchased the platformand, half a year later,

(14:13):
I actually decided to join Sensativeinstead and try to spread the word
and get the product out toa lot of other municipalities
to make things happen.So this is now, I don't know,
five years ago.-But when you…
When you started to mentionthere I got the feeling

(14:34):
that you… I mean, in a wayyou’re technicians, you build a platform,
you don't really construct your platformbased on how municipalities
are organised.Is this an obstacle
that you maybehave the different departments
in the cityand data is running and flowing

(14:56):
all over the places and…-It's… In in some ways,
it's an obstacle, of course, for Sensativefrom a commercial standpoint.
Typically our competitors,there are other platforms.
I might claim that we are a bit aheadof the bunch

(15:17):
but there are other platforms.And I suspect that the other guys
from other platform companieswould say the same
that most of the timesit's like vertical
niched specific productsthat is our real competition.
So things going on outin the different lines

(15:38):
of businesses where they
don't have the time, the resources,the competencies,
the skills to see the greater good.They focus on their own, you know,
line of business and the mission at hand,and they end up and get stuck in
in a sort of a proprietarykind of closed solution,

(16:02):
which will do the trick. Most of themare actually quite good at it,
but from a macro kind of standpoint,you will in the end
have like what you're saying, Magnus,you know, like
57 different vertical solutions.We don't really know where the data is,
how it's structured, how we can access it.And sometimes

(16:22):
you don't even own your own data,but the line manager in the departments
is happy because, you know,they will have their, I don't know,
automated, wateringor whatever it might be.
but from a digitalisation standpoint,talking about the smart society
and the municipality,I think it makes sense

(16:44):
to have a common approachand do digitalisation
across organisation lines.And this is not
Actually… It's not necessarilyan IoT issue.
It's a general thingwhen you're talking about digitalisation.
And do you thinkthat standardisation will help?

(17:06):
Of course.We are only at the beginning
of standardisation in the IoT world.There are 13 by the dozen
of different standards,and they claim to be standards,
or they might be considered as a standard.So yeah, the standardisation
and interoperability will be crucialmoving forward.

(17:28):
We're not quite there yet.We have decided to embrace the European…
I think you should claimthat it is a standard.
But Fiware,which is a European initiative.
So we have, you know,a standardised API on top of our platform,
which means that you can actually,you know, build an application on top

(17:50):
of our platformand then remove the platform
and put it,you know, another platform in place
instead. We've tried itand it actually works.
But standardisation isjust one part of the of the puzzle.
There are so many factors impacting,you know, the emerging

(18:10):
smart society.What is the…
How many standards did you say? 13?-13 by
the dozen.-There's constantly…
I mean, it's more or less impossibleto keep up
with new stuffpopping up in the IoT industry.

(18:32):
It's happening things everywhere.You have a consortium
talking about Wisan.Do you know what that is, Magnus?
It's a communication standard,like, medium band in
you know, where LoRaWANdoesn't really cut it
and you don't want to go fibre Wi-Fi.-A little bit better than something.

(18:54):
Yeah, but…And they claim it to be a standard.
It might be considered a standard.Is it adopted in Sweden?
I haven't seen anyoneusing it actually in Sweden.
So there's a lot of…And it's most likely a proper good thing.
But there’sa lot of different standards
popping up constantlyin this domain.

(19:18):
My industry backgroundis in the telecom.
That's why I used the example telecom.And I really loved GSM
and that development.It made it so obvious
for the buyers and customers.Okay, I go this way
and I think for a major, how niceit would be
to have something to lean against.-I'm sort of

(19:41):
I don't… How should I put it in English?I don't envy
the guys working, if it's the mayor officeor the CDO or the CIO.
I don't envy them, becauseit's a lot of things
going on in the IoT industry,and a lot of companies will claim things,

(20:02):
and it's difficult to sort things out,which you need to be able to do.
You need to be able to sort things out,and make your own decisions
on how to move forward.But also, I would like to challenge that,
you know, GSM…Because what we're talking about
is more or less one use case, right?You bring up your phone

(20:23):
and you'll be able to talkover the mobile network.
And having droppedbetween different phones
And the base stationsand stuff like that.
But in the IoT world, I mean,through our platform,
we have, I don't know,150 to 200 different use cases running.
Some is using Wi-Fi,some is using cellular.
It's these old traditionalindustry protocols and

(20:44):
and, you know,it's so many different standards
that if you talk about IoT as a term,it's such a broad
array of different things that you can do.-I just think, it ought to be possible
to embrace a lot of it.-I mean, whatever you can sense
with your human senses, right?You can use a sensor to sense it also,

(21:09):
but then you have, you know,this infrared and
lots of different other thingsthat you can detect also.
So we are working with a digital noseright now here
at Sensative using Bosch,have a small sensor which we are using
where you can actuallydetect different

(21:30):
gases and compounds in the air,and you train the sensors
to detect specific patterns,so it can decide
whether it's oneor the other of two different coffee brands
that you're using in the coffee machine.So there's no sort of limit
to what you will be able to do.-Absolutely. But I guess the further

(21:52):
you get in the system,the more diversity and faster,
involvement you will have,but the more to the core
maybe you needsome sort of some unified things
to the different…-I mean, inside the core of Yggio
and in a lot of other platformsalso of course,
is the Fiware standard formatof expressing data

(22:16):
and providing that throughour implementation
of the NGSIv2 API on top of our platform.-Let's move back to this nose here
because we werediscussing this this morning here.
We talked about allergyand the pollen.
So when you, would you seea city manager's dilemma here,

(22:38):
would you present earning moneyor saving money
or improving quality of life?What's the sort of
selling point for him, or her?-I would claim that
to be able to at all be able to deliveron the municipal tasks

(22:59):
at hand would require digitalisationin general and the use of IoT
specifically. You know, in this context.I was up in the municipality in
the western parts of Sweden,and they actually
didn't have staff on boardto do elderly care in their private homes,

(23:20):
which is a big,you know, both a big cost
instance for the major, but alsosomething that,
requires a lot of staff.And you need to have staff
to be able to go homeand take care of elderly people
and give them foodand make sure they're okay.
And they didn't have staff to do this.Okay. So the use of technology

(23:45):
in a broader sense will make the mayorable to actually deliver on
what they are supposed to do, becausea lot of people will,
you know, retire soon.And we are getting older and older.
And at the same time,there's such a diverse society today.

(24:07):
So it, you know,it becomes more and more difficult
to deliver on the municipal tasks.So that I would claim,
is the by far the mostimportant aspect of things.
Of course, then you could drill downand see, okay.
I mean, the general pattern when using IoTis moving from

(24:27):
reactive or scheduled operations.So someone calls in and says
hey, this is broken, fix it,or there's a water leakage here.
It cost us 10 million to fix itbecause we haven't detected it earlier.
Or it's Thursday, it's 10 o’clock,then we're supposed to do this.

(24:48):
If it's needed at that point in time,it doesn't really matter.
It's in the schedule, so let's do it.Whereas with IoT,
you will all of a suddenhave more or less real time insights
on the actual statusof things out in the municipality,
and that gives you the possibilityto use less resources

(25:09):
to actually do things.and you do things when it's needed,
not later and not sooner.so you're kind of a just in time-approach
And to top off, then some of the thingswe will be able to automate also.
You know, turn on and off thingsor whatever it might be.

(25:29):
And the last part, there will,of course, be to use AI to know
that this will happen in two weeks,so please do something now
in order to avoid situations.And then the last one, Magnus.
It became a long rant here,but you have the more

(25:51):
security oriented, risk minimisingkind of, use cases also,
which just,you know, it's just out with sensors.
And how that…-Do you think IoT is too broad
of a concept for this?-Yeah. To some extent
I would agree.It's… For the last couple

(26:12):
of years, it has been very,very much focussed on
the technology in itself.We have jointly in the IoT kind
of community have, you know,tried to figure out exactly
how does LoRaWAN work,how does the sensor work,
which sensors works, and these kindof technical aspects of things.
Now, I think we are really, really,moving quite fast into a talk about,

(26:37):
you know, how do you implementthis and what effects
do you really want to accomplish outin the municipality
or it doesn't need to bethe public organisations,
It can be privately held companies also,but in the water and sewage company
or, you know,what do we really want to achieve?
And the still kind of slowlyshifting mindset

(27:02):
within upper managementwithin the municipality to go from
where they are todayto a more data driven approach
on things, because I thinkthat it's absolutely necessary to do this.
But mind you, in my private lifeI'm quite analogue.
I tried to stay away from too muchtech in my world.

(27:25):
So it needs to be balanced alsoin the municipality,
because there is, of course,a risk of us, you know,
having everything automatedand you lose kind of
the human touch on things, beingable to see each other out in the society.
Everything is structuredin a system instead.

(27:47):
I mean, I'm atech guy myself.
So sometimeswe strive for some sort of tech
to solve general problems.And the general machine
the general formula,not even our best physicians
have sort of unifiedall formulas into one.
They are looking for it.But could it be also that

(28:09):
as a major perspective he can understandI have a problem with water.
I have a problem with its draft.I have a problem
with the care of elderly.I have so many problems.
But… And I like to discuss thatif you have solutions for it.
But why do we need this IoT for?-If you had the possibility to,

(28:34):
for a reasonably cheap investment,have real time insights
on status of things,would that be of interest?
Because it will give youanother level
of decision-making possibilities.-I can build this control room.

(28:56):
I'm not so sure that we want that.Maybe we do.
I'm not really sure. But if it…Then also from
a major perspectiveand the central
management of things, you have delegate.Right. So typically in,
in the Swedish municipalityand I'm guessing

(29:17):
it's the same throughout Europe.each organisation, you know,
owns their own digitalisation,so to speak.
So if you are ahead of,the elderly care department,
then that's your headache.And that is what you're working on.
But the problem is that…-You have your silo.
Yeah, you have your silos,and we will have them forever.

(29:39):
You know your own…It's difficult to manage other silos
at the same time,but you need to be aware that they exist.
And you need to understand when and howto collaborate,
In certain aspectswithin a municipality.
A typical example of that is, you have a,the public housing company

(29:59):
and typically delivering,you know, apartments,
affordable apartments.And they try to do that in
the most sustainable and smart way.And then you have the energy company,
they deliver energy to this,you know, electricity or district heating
or whatever it might beto this public housing company.
Okay. So now you have two actors.And then you have the water

(30:22):
and sewage company.Well, they also actually deliver,
you know, clean water, and take care ofthat's not clean.
and then… So now we have three actors.And then you have
the municipality taking care of elderly.They typically do this inside
of the apartments, which is ownedby the public housing company.
Now you have four actors,and then you have the relatives
to the elderly people living there.And it doesn't make sense

(30:46):
not to work togetheron this issue then.
So it's quite simplefrom a technical standpoint
to measure water electricity consumptionfor an apartment
and then to use that dataand reuse it for various kind of purposes.
You know, the water companycan do their automated billing.

(31:06):
And the same goesfor the energy company.
But still, the data from that,will give you a very,
very clear indicatoron the status of the person
living in this apartment.So then you get into sort
of privacy and integritykind of issues instead,
and it becomes bothorganisational kind of problem,

(31:30):
you know, who does whatand who is responsible for what,
who pays for what, who owns the data?How can the data be shared and so forth.
But it's not really a technical problem.The technical aspect of this is
we're there in the industry,it's quite easy
to do these kind of use cases,but, to have it work together

(31:51):
across departments that's,you know, from my standpoint
where the challenges lay.-Okay, you're a tech company,
but still, I like to postthe question to you anyway.
But I mean, do you thinkthat the municipalities,
the way they build, you know,they plan the society here,

(32:15):
here we'll have thesetype of buildings
and here are the roads, and it'sa planning process here in place.
And it has certain process stepsand decisions
and involvement from citizens.And in the end, you get a plan,
you get investors,you get real estate companies
and retail companies and coming in,okay, I deliver on this plan.

(32:38):
We'd like to be part hereand they're invited and so forth.
Do you think we lack some sort of…A planning like the digital plan
for the city in a similar way.Is that something the major
could use or should have?-I think you're spot on.

(33:00):
Like the digital soft architecturethat we are
more or less building.-Maybe it's a mess today.
It's just a mess.-Yeah. Well, so in the IoT space,
at least here in Sweden,it's been a number of projects ongoing,

(33:21):
which has really made an impact,on a municipal,
on a national level,on the approach and the wave.
You know, thingsI talked about earlier here,
you know, it makes senseto have a common IoT platform
and these kinds of things.That's becoming a reality.
So there is a shift going on,which is great.

(33:45):
But in terms of…How should I put it?
The digital societal structureand how we build it, there is…
I mean, the differentIT or digitalisation
departments tried to, you know,have an impact
and do their digital agenda and try to,you know, force

(34:09):
but they don't have…-A digital twin.
That's yet another buzzword, right?What is that?
But anyway,the decision making is still
being done by the differentdepartment directors.
And they have their ownbest interest in mind.

(34:33):
Not necessarily the whole society.So I think we need to be a lot better
to plan and do our,you know, long term
working kind of approachon how to move forward
with the digital society.-And I understand your company.

(34:54):
You do your thing.This is not something you drive,
of course, it's…-But we're providing
with enabling technologyto make this happen.
But we're just a tech supplier.That's what we do.
We are starting to tryto help our customers
out on this journey also.But there's a lot of municipalities

(35:17):
throughout Europe, right?There's… This problem
is not unique for Sweden,but I think that
there are some great initiatives,on route in Europe.
We have Fiware.I think it's a great initiative

(35:37):
and approach something,you have the MIMs, the minimum
and you have Gaia X,which also talks about and drives
towards European sovereignty.So we have our own ways
of doing things.But on a national level, I still lack,
you know, in Sweden at least,we have been very,

(36:00):
very good from a national levelto subsidise
broadband,you know, digging down fibre.
So we have one of the best fibre networksin Sweden. But when we're moving upwards
in the technology stack,it becomes more complex
and not as easyto do things from a national level.

(36:20):
So I'm kind of… I think wehave Digg, they've been in place now
for a couple of yearsand they are doing great things,
giving their mandateand the budget they receive.
But we could do so much moreon a national level actually, I think.
Coming back to thispeople centric thing.

(36:42):
And sometimes, of course,new solutions mean replacing people.
Have you ever come across…I mean, again we
take in the pollen allergy thing.We realise that
actually someone is taking a pollvia maybe some sort of glue-ish

(37:03):
type of thing and thenputting it into in the microscope
and counting numbersof pollen stuff in the air.
That could be done by a very smartmachine, of course.
Have you ever come across this?Does this mean
I have to move people away?-Yeah. Yeah, it's…

(37:25):
Of course, you know,you were talking about the acceptance
of new technologyas being the next obstacle.
And I agree that there is, of course…You know, people are perhaps not afraid
straight up, but what you don't knowand really understand is

(37:49):
often seen as something thatI'm not sure if I want to,
you know, engage in this or,what does it really mean for me?
But I've been in the IT businessfor 25 years
and you know,when you work with IT and digitalisation,
it per se meanschanging the way you do things.

(38:11):
And at least in the projectswhere I have been involved,
it has never meant thatpeople are laid off by things,
but people do other things instead.Like I said earlier,
the problem for a municipality is that,you know, having people on board
at all to be able to deliveron the municipal tasks,

(38:35):
that's the problem.And it's here and now,
it's not in five years or ten years,it's happening right now.
So we need to start adopting technologyto be able to
have societies that arefunctioning, and that that is…
So it's not aboutletting people go.

(38:57):
It's about transforming the contentsof what we are doing.
And perhaps,hopefully focus on the quality
in what we're doing insteadof doing these day to day routines
That you really don't need to do.You don't need it.

(39:18):
Actually, yesterdayI witnessed Eurovision,
the semi-finals.-That is a crazy party thing, right?
Crazy party thing.And it's a sort of extreme diversity
in a way that the more the merrier,in a way.
So, it's a great thing.But, if you were the jury here,

(39:40):
you know, the IoT jury,not the Eurovision jury.
Where would you
point for some sort of IoT light?Here is a major.
Here is a city that reallyare on to something.

(40:02):
Or the cities are on to something
that that maybe…-Yeah.
Is there a light in Sweden?-Yeah, there's a couple of
Municipalities. I don’t want tooffend someone here now.
So I need…-Just mention someone you like.
Yeah. I mean, first off,the city of Stockholm,

(40:26):
they have done an amazing work ontrying to define their
long term IoT architecture.And they have a quality program,
which is great.And they are
doing what they saythat they will do also.

(40:47):
And so they're…It's a huge city with
a lot of big actors.So it takes time, which is okay,
but they're continuously working ontowards the same goal, so to speak.
So I'm really impressedwith their work.
What kind of applicationsare driving them or what?
I think you have toask them, Magnus.

(41:12):
But I know that they,most of the departments
and, you know, municipalityowned companies
do have a lot of different thingsthat they really would like to do.
So there we see diversity in…-Diversity and, and of course
the different departments andcompanies they have,
you know, own vertical approaches also.But these things can actually coexist,

(41:37):
in a structured way.So, Stockholm is worth mentioning.
I would also like to mention…The usual suspects pop up, right,
but the city of Helsingborg isquite kind of cool also because they…
It's in their culture totry to do things
and do it and it's okay to fail,but, well, look, this worked.

(41:59):
And then they expand on thatAnd scale up things.
So Helsingborg is also doing cool things.There's a lot of other municipalities
doing things also.Umeå, Malmö, Lund.
So there's a number of…-And in Europe?
I would claim thatSweden and Finland…

(42:25):
I would claim,at least from a municipal standpoint,
we are best in class.I do see a lot of
projects and things going on.They hold up, I don't know,
Amsterdam or Barcelona as being smart andand they are cool

(42:47):
and they're doing cool things.But to do it properly…
Because everyone wants to travel there.-It might be.
They are beautiful places both,but they're not doing it
on a macro kind of level,trying to have the cross
organisation kind of approach on things,which I do think
that both Swedenand Finland in particular have.

(43:09):
So there's sort ofmore silos in that sense,
and here we also cross silos.-Yes, we might not be as fast
when we do things,but when we do things,
we do it properlyand we do it for the purpose
of long-lasting digitalisation,in some form.

(43:32):
And what type of… I'm reallyInterested in circular economy.
Keeping track of things,keeping track of resources
that are not used or underusedor to understand it.
Is that something where you seethat the city can really,

(43:52):
earn, or understand more ofmanaging their spaces,
managing their flows, managing things andand give guidance to entrepreneurs
and companies that areinvolved in the city's services.
Yeah, we're perhaps not quite there yet,but on a macro level,

(44:14):
doing it, scaling up.But we do a number of different use cases
where we actuallyeither track
you know,the number of people on a square
or how many people are inside a building.How are the buildings being used?
All of these, you know,what do you call it?

(44:37):
The pedestrian and bicycle lanes.How many people are using them,
in what directions?When over the day
or 24 hours?But it's still spread
in different projects,not, you know, the complete
municipal control dashboardkind of approach.

(44:58):
We're not quite there yet, I would claim,but it's not all that difficult
to do these kinds of things.-Energy.
Yeah. Energy optimisation is somethingthat we are heavily invested in.
Most often it's related toreal estate companies.
Might be municipalityowned companies.

(45:19):
But you know, first,to be able to do energy optimisation,
you need to realise how much dataor energy you're using
and what kind of resourcesare using to be able to manage
and reconfigure your buildings.So we're working
quite a lot in that space.-I think finally,

(45:45):
I'd like to maybe mention a little bitabout this integrity
and privacy, of course. I mean, maybeit's a generational divide here,
but do you see a difference betweenages and in terms
of privacy and integrity, that…-I'm not really sure if it's an age thing

(46:10):
or if it's not.-If it's an individual thing.
On one hand,we as a person, I'm guessing, Magnus,
that you have either an Android basedor an Apple based phone, right?
That means that you are constantly sharingwith a big American company
your whereabouts and what you do.-I know, I know that,

(46:32):
but I'm not doing it voluntarilyor I'm sort of not protesting.
You need a phone.-I need a phone
and I say yes to everything,but okay.
I tried to say no toas much as I can,
but it becomes a problem.But that's on a consumer side of things.
But…-But sometimes, I guess

(46:55):
people say yesbecause they feel that
it could improvetheir life of quality.
That, okay, I give this awaybecause I get a better service
somehow.-But I think that…
And this is just me thinking now, Magnus.I don't have you know…
That's so nice with the podcast format.We can do this,

(47:16):
this is not research here.-Excellent, excellent.
Well, then it's a fact.It's established fact.
No, but I'm saying thatwhen I've been working
in the public sector, one of the thingswe have been talking a lot about is
the trust from the citizenson how a municipality,

(47:37):
govern their information and data assets,and how we are using the information
that we have on you as a citizen.We knew that you have two kids.
You have a, I don't know,a boat, where you work.
And we knew a lot of things about youas a citizen.
And how do I make sure that you are…I'm trustworthy in this process.

(48:03):
And I think that…We talked earlier about elderly care,
for instance. If I as a citizenis being offered the possibility
to share data, not with Apple or Google,but actually
with the municipality on things,and in exchange, I get the possibility

(48:25):
to get better services,whatever it might be.
I think that is somethingthat you will actually do,
right?I'd rather trust the municipality
where I live thansome abstract companies
somewhere else. I think that is a huge,an important aspect of things

(48:51):
when we talk about IoTand the, you know,
emerging usage of IoT is… Okay,where does the data reside?
Is it compliant withthe GDPR
and the laws? And the municipalities,they need to comply

(49:12):
with the European laws.That means that
I'm in good hands, so to speak.And as a municipality,
when you deliver these services,you will be able to actually have control
of the data if you do it right.-So maybe then we talked
about acceptance a little.You mentioned this earlier,

(49:33):
that maybe the trust,if we can establish the trust
that could improve acceptanceand also a faster deployment.
Yeah, yeah.I mean, initially, you know, of course,
in the municipalitiesand in the companies,
it's the more technical kindof departments

(49:54):
and companiesthat are using the technology.
And it's initially not… most oftennot very sensitive data
that we are gathering.It's the temperature
or whatever it might be.So it's not really a big issue.
But the trust on the datawill be increasingly important,

(50:18):
when we add use casesand being able to actually pick a number
of different data sources togetherand draw conclusions.
Especially when we’removing into the AI age,
so to speak. So, how you manage dataand work with data
inside of a municipality,not, you know,

(50:40):
the traditional working with systemand application management,
because that we have done for decades.That's not a problem, but working
with information as such.A good thing,
a sign that I'm seeing isthat some of the municipalities
are actually recruitingand employing information

(51:01):
governance employees,their sole purpose, you know, that's
why they get paid every month,is to work in structured data
and inform departmentson how to work with data.
So that the information and the datais at the core of everything constantly.
Also, when talking about… It’s fun factor interesting aspects,

(51:24):
is that one of the competenciesthat we actually do have today,
are librarians. So librarians,they are heavily invested
in structuring dataand categorising things.
So, a pro tip from the sideis to actually pick some of

(51:47):
the librarians to work as informationarchitects inside of a municipality.
It might not be as good forthe department manager
for the libraries, but anyway.-A new career path
has just popped up here.-I've seen it happen
in several instances.And they're doing a good job.

(52:09):
To finish off here.-Did we actually manage to capture
the human touch of things?It was a good title?
I think so. We'll see, maybe we changethe whole beginning of the program.
This is where we ended.-Okay.
Thank you very muchfor this session

(52:33):
And hope for luckand prosperous future.
Thank you, Magnus. Thank you.
You've been listening to a podcastfrom IoT Sweden,
a strategic innovation programmefinanced by Vinnova, Swedish
Innovation Agency and Energimyndigheten,the Swedish Energy Agency

(52:57):
and Formas, Research Councilfor Sustainable Development.
And the music in the programis especially written for IoT Sweden
by Johannes Bergenheim.And me, who produced the programme,
is Magnus Fransson.