Nokia has announced that it is launching a joint programme with Smart City Capital in order to help Canadian cities fund smart city projects. The decision to focus on Canada is quite interesting considering Alpahbet’s Sidewalk Labs has begun the task of building up a smart area in Toronto called Quayside.
Shawn Sparling from Nokia noted that city funding is a major stumbling block to development, meanwhile, Oscar Bode, CEO at Smart City Capital, said:
“Nokia's growing expertise in smart city deployments and project management, coupled with our strong funding base and innovative funding model, puts us in an ideal position to help simplify, expedite, and increase the adoption of smart, safe, and sustainable smart city deployments throughout the country.”
The project funding from Smart City Capital is above $2 billion CAD according to the announcement, and will be used towards the Smart Cities Challenge programme that was previously launched in the country earlier this year. Nokia said that the move shows that it’s interested in expanding its customer base outside of the traditional telcom sphere and into smart cities – a field which most tech companies will be interested in expanding into over time.
Source: Nokia
