The Smart University project of the University of Alicante started in 2014 and since then it has undertaken important steps within the institution but also beyond, as it has now become a collaborative project involving 9 Spanish Universities, in the framework of the project UniDigital.
It aims to be a small-scale pilot model with all the dimensions covered in a Smart City. The concept of Smart City (linked with the 15-minutes city), covers the use of digital technology and data to improve services and quality of life, and encompasses the following key areas: Smart Economy, Smart Mobility, Smart Environment, Smart People, Smart Living, Smart Government.
The Smart University UA also seeks to cover these dimensions and focuses on developing a comprehensive university model that employs technology to improve societal quality of life. Through intensive, efficient, and sustainable IT use, the project seeks to interconnect all stakeholders and services, benefiting the entire community. By integrating data from various IoT systems into a centralized data HUB, the project creates extensive datasets. To achieve its goals, the project has developed:
- The KUNNA platform, a data analysis platform that was created with the philosophy of bringing together in a single Data HUB billions of records from the different data verticals of the university, as well as from different data sources such as IOT devices or sensors of different kinds, being able to combine all of them to generate new sources of information. It is currently made up of several components, including KUNNA Studio as an analytics, visualisation and data exploitation platform and KUNNA Open API as an access point for querying data from the different datasets. Coupled with AI techniques, will analyse this information to support decision-making processes, allowing the university to optimize its resource management, infrastructure, and services.
- LoRaWAN Sensing, a low consumption and long distance sensor system, based on LORA, which allows real-time monitoring of its infrastructures as well as developing and offering efficient management services of the facilities, monitoring risks and generating alarms. It is integrated with KUNNA and the public network The Things Network.
- The SmartUNI – UniDigital, an OPEN source project coordinated by the University of Alicante which focuses on the creation of a system which integrates and centralises all the data from the different types of sensorisation that can be generated in the universities of the consortium.
These actions have allowed the university to acquire, analyse and monitor the data from very different sectors, from water, to energy, passing through transport, and environmental quality. This has consequently resulted in the implementation of a series of actions and policies to do a more efficient and adequate use of the available resources. Now, Smart University teams up with ABCinEnergy to optimise and maximise the results of both projects and build a more sustainable campus and enhance the university community awareness.
If you would like to get more information about the Smart University initiative, explore the website, the KUNNA Platform (in your UACloud), the real-time sensor system LoRaWAN or the White Book “Smart University: Towards a more open university” which aims to help universities and cities to take the first step to achieve a new society by creating a common framework that will give birth to the Smart University, and in general to the Smart Cities of the 21st Century.