About

Introduction

This is an era where sensing devices are ubiquitous, and the concepts of smart cities, smart homes and smart environments are constantly gaining popularity among all the areas of quadruple helix (citizens, businesses, academia and government). It is a logical outcome, and an eventuality, that these Internet of Things networks can, and should, be used towards better healthcare, aiding physicians, citizens, building operators and city planners in making more informed decisions. More importantly, we perceive through this project that statistical models can be examined and used as enablers by professionals to predict and prevent health risks at an effective rate. The continuous monitoring environment Internet of Things can provide, and the Big Data it produces can enable, focused analytics based on the individual areas of habitat, that can be eventually associated to individual patients by professionals. This will allow for environmental data enriched, analytics based, personalized care from the physicians but also enable city planners and home owners to create a better environment for the population of a specific area.

‘Snow-IoT” aims to investigate the applicability of Internet of Things enabled continuous environmental monitoring for better health care, better design of urban environments and in providing to the general public continuous awareness of the environmental dangers, regarding health and sustainable living, related to their habitat environment.

‘Snow-IoT’ will utilize data from IoT sensors as well as aggregate statistics from healthcare providers in order to better plan IoT sensor installation, provide analytics and insights on the environmental conditions and research statistical models that can be derived by the data associations observed. The results of the project will become available through an enhanced insights platform providing additional data to health care providers as well as continuously analyzing risk and offer awareness to the general public.

Snow-IoT Core Objective

Snow-IoT brings together a private Research and Development company, namely CyRIC[1], a well-established Medical School, namely the University of Nicosia Research Foundation[2] , and the biggest private hospital in the country, namely the Ygia Polyclinic Private Hospital[3].

Figure below visualizes our concept regarding the Snow-IoT project, including research and development activities, technical outcomes and target audiences. As per our vision, Snow-IoT can complement and advance the existing CyRIC IoT cloud and smart city infrastructure. Four IoT gateways are planned to be installed through the project that will enable complete coverage of the Limassol City Area (shown in the map) and the southeastern Larnaca area, where specific pilots will take place. The gateways will be installed in the areas identified by the project through the examination of aggregated statistical patterns of Igia Policlinic patient visitations. In the Larnaca area, special focus will be given to the examination of water and air pollutants and their association with the Water Desalination Plan and the Dhekelia Power Station that reside in the area. Figure below shows how using as an example the Limassol district city infrastructure to be deployed by the project.

[1] http://www.cyric.eu/

[2] https://www.med.unic.ac.cy/

[3] http://www.ygiapolyclinic.com/en/

 

Main objectives

  • To create internationally acclaimed new knowledge in an emerging multidisciplinary field, i.e. smart city environments, combining Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Medical Sciences and enabling innovation in healthcare services.
  • To advance the synergies between a private research company, CyRIC, a leader in the healthcare sector, the Ygia Polyclinic Private Hospital, and an acknowledged research institution, the University of Nicosia Research Foundation. Through this collaboration, we foresee the involvement of students to high quality innovative applied research that is expected to result into actual products.
  • To make the project results available for exploitation by the Host Organization CyRIC Ltd, service providers, local authorities, and a wide range of citizen-oriented SMEs for the improvement of the quality of life of citizens, providing them with new advanced services towards a better and personalized healthcare, improved living (home and urban) environment, enhanced information and awareness. This will result in improved client services, reduce outburst resolution time and establish long term policies towards better living environments.
  • To enable the nation- and global-wide Dissemination and Exploitation of the Snow-IoT Smart Environment healthcare services paradigm and its applications in different use cases and scenarios. CyRIC as the Cyprus Business Innovation Center (BIC) certified by the European Business network (EBN) with its first ICT Venture Building Incubator will be able to exploit in the future the results of this project through Open calls for Startups to join in with Smart City applications.

The Snow-IoT project objectives are in full compliance with the Research in Enterprises Programme Call under the 1st Pillar “Smart Growth”. The project targets Cyprus Smart Specialization Areas under the ICT and Health priority sectors

Work packages

In order to achieve the objectives, the Snow-IoT work plan is divided into 8 work packages (WPs), each targeting different objectives, tasks and expected results.

WP1: Project Management

WP2: Dissemination Activities and Commercialization Plan

WP3: Analysis, Comparison and Evaluation of Smart Environment Services Initiatives

WP4: Internet of Things Pilot Infrastructure Deployment and Analytics

WP5: Health and Safety services and Pilot Applications