A team of top IBM experts has arrived in Limerick to address challenges around the city’s ageing population.
Limerick is hosting a visit of the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge team after the city was named winner of the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge programme 2015 alongside 16 other municipalities including Athens, Melbourne, Denver and Amsterdam.
Five IBM staff will spend three weeks working closely with local stakeholders, analysing and defining ways in which Limerick can improve the quality of life and independence of older adults through increased connectivity and improved access to key services.
The primary focus of the consulting engagement is to develop a strategy that will enable Limerick to predict and respond to the needs of older people through the better management of shared information.
The outcome will also include a road map document with short and long term recommendations.
The Council and local stakeholders will be complementing the recommendations received and of course, broadening this engagement and sharing best practices with other cities and regions.
The 17 winners in the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge programme have been selected from a highly competitive pool of more than 100 cities around the world that applied for a grant of consulting services from IBM.
The consulting engagement in Limerick has an estimated commercial value of USD $500,000 (€447,000).
Cllr. Liam Galvin, Mayor of the City and County of Limerick said, “This is a wonderful achievement for Limerick as past Smarter Cities Challenge engagements have delivered quantifiable results for participating cities and regions. IBM has helped past winners from around the world to significantly improve the quality of life for their residents. Projects informed by IBM advice have helped to upgrade skills of city staff, enabled cities to win prestigious awards, and made them more competitive.”
The cities named as winners of this year’s IBM Smarter Cities Challenge programme are Limerick (Ireland), Denver, Detroit, Rochester and Memphis (USA), Melbourne (Australia), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Huizhou and Xuzhou (China), San Isidro (Peru), Allahabad, Surat and Vizag (India), Athens (Greece), Sekondi-Takoradi (Ghana) and Taichung (Taiwan).
The Smarter Cities Challenge is IBM’s largest philanthropic initiative, with contributions to date valued at more than USD $66 million (€59m) worldwide.
More information can be found at www.limerick.ie/scc or follow the #SCCLimerick hash tag on Twitter