UPB & Groupe INSA Summer School

The road from smart buildings to smart cities
2nd Edition, 23-29 August 2021

A modern city demands intelligent usage of data, people and technology in order to create inclusive and sustainable solutions. Smart buildings are increasingly taking a central role in the development of smart cities and are widely recognized as essential tools in meeting the many challenges that we face today and will probably face in the future - including achieving net zero emission targets, population safety and the constant demand for greater interoperability.

Collectively, buildings in the EU are responsible for 40% of our energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, which mainly stem from construction, usage, renovation and demolition.

This context is the reason behind our Summer School “The road from Smart Buildings to Smart Cities”, in which students will have the opportunity to design the future by answering the following questions:

• What is a smart building and what challenges does it solve in the climate change context?
• How can the latest smart buildings innovations contribute to energy efficiency?
• What role do the IoT (Internet-of-Things) objects play inside smart buildings and how can the data collected in such a building be used?
• How does this all connect into the smart city of the future? What are some creative ways in which the gathered data at the city level might be used?
• How do we get from where we are to the smart city of the future?

These questions will be approached in different ways, from lectures offered by experts from UPB, Groupe INSA and company representatives - who will share their knowledge and experience - to on-site scientific visits and even group projects, games and other activities.