TM Forum announced at TM Forum Live! 2016 a series of milestones related to the momentum of its Smart City Forum which officially launched in January 2016. These include the launch of the ‘Smartcity maturity and benchmark model,’ the first demonstration in real-world scenarios of the ‘Economy-of-Data’ model via the TMForum-Fiware Business Framework and a strategic collaboration agreement with LabCities. TM Forum’s Smart City InFocus event is returning to Yinchuan, China in September.

Getting broad support from multiple influential organisations, the model allows a city to assess its strengths and weaknesses in five key dimension areas related to city ‘smartness’ and to set clear goals as to how it will transform over the next two to five years. it also enables the city to benchmark itself against similar cities and identify other cities with whom it can partner to tackle similar challenges. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between TM Forum, the Smart Cities Council, Shanghai Academy and the World e-Governments Organization of Cities and Local Governments (WeGO) to promote the adoption of the TM Forum Smart City Maturity & Benchmark Model to over 300 cities worldwide.

The TM Forum also announced the first demonstration of the ‘Economy-of-Data’ model via the TMForum-Fiware Business Framework. The ‘Economy-of-Data’ initiative is an effort to develop a central platform for composing, exposing and monetising data for smart city stakeholders to create and deliver new services.

Complementing TM Forum’s Smart City efforts, the forum also entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with LabCities, a global marketplace for successful smart city projects connecting talented individuals and organisations from both the smart city supply and demand side. This collaboration adds more than 15,000 smart city experts, innovators and entrepreneurs from around the world to connect and crowdsource new urban products, digital trends and business models.

TM Forum’s Smart City InFocus event is returning to Yinchuan, China in September.