iKaaS · Project

Smart City Data Platform That Turns IoT Sensor Feeds Into Actionable Business Intelligence

digitalTestedTRL 5

Imagine your city is covered in sensors — in homes, on phones, in public spaces — all generating mountains of data nobody can make sense of. iKaaS built a cloud-based platform that collects all that messy IoT data, crunches it securely, and turns it into useful knowledge — like a search engine, but for real-world city life. Think of it as a smart assistant that can spot patterns across an entire city's data to help with everything from health recommendations to urban planning. The platform was designed to keep personal data private while still extracting the insights businesses and city governments actually need.

By the numbers

consortium partners

countries represented

EUR 1,554,750

EU contribution

total deliverables produced

SMEs in the consortium

44%

industry partner ratio

The business problem

What needed solving

Cities and businesses are drowning in IoT sensor data from smart homes, mobile devices, and connected infrastructure — but most of it sits in silos, unanalyzed and useless. Building a secure, privacy-respecting platform that can pull together this heterogeneous data and extract actionable insights across cloud environments is expensive and technically demanding. Without such a platform, smart city services, health recommendations, and urban planning decisions are made on incomplete information.

The solution

What was built

The team built a consolidated cloud-based platform delivered as APIs and cloud-ready deployment images. The platform connects to IoT data sources (mobile terminals, smart devices, smart homes), runs Big Data analytics across heterogeneous cloud infrastructures, and was demonstrated through Smart City applications focused on citizen health/safety self-management and urban data analysis.

Audience

Who needs this

Smart city solution providers integrating multiple IoT data streamsDigital health companies building location-aware wellness servicesUrban planning consultancies needing city-scale data analyticsMunicipal governments modernizing citizen services with IoT dataCloud platform companies looking to add IoT analytics capabilities

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Urban Technology & Smart City Services

mid-size

Target: Smart city solution providers and urban analytics companies

If you are a smart city technology provider struggling to integrate data from dozens of different IoT sensor networks — this project developed a cloud-based platform with ready-made APIs that pulls together data from mobile terminals, smart devices, and smart home sensors into one analytics engine. The consolidated platform delivers cloud-ready deployable images, meaning you could potentially integrate it without building your own data aggregation layer from scratch.

Healthcare & Wellbeing Technology

SME

Target: Digital health companies focused on preventive care and citizen wellness

If you are a digital health company looking to offer location-aware, behaviour-specific health recommendations — this project built analytics tools demonstrated specifically for self-management of health and safety of citizens. The platform processes IoT data from smart homes and mobile devices to generate lifestyle recommendations, which could power your next-generation preventive health product for city populations.

Real Estate & Urban Planning

enterprise

Target: Property developers and city planning consultancies

If you are in urban development and need better data to inform where and what to build — this project created a Big Data analytics engine designed explicitly for future city planning use cases. With 9 partners across 6 countries testing the platform, it was built to handle cross-border data analysis, which is valuable if you operate in multiple European markets.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to license or adopt this platform?

The project received EUR 1,554,750 in EU funding and was coordinated by the University of Surrey. Licensing terms would need to be negotiated directly with the consortium. Based on available project data, no commercial pricing model was published.

Can this platform handle industrial-scale data volumes?

The platform was designed for city-scale IoT environments, collecting data from mobile terminals, smart devices, and smart homes across heterogeneous cloud infrastructures. The consolidated platform delivered cloud-ready images and APIs, suggesting it was architected for scalable deployment. However, specific throughput benchmarks are not available in the project data.

Who owns the intellectual property and how can I access it?

The IP is distributed among the 9 consortium partners across 6 countries, with the University of Surrey as coordinator. As a Research and Innovation Action (RIA), results are typically owned by the partners who generated them. You would need to contact the consortium to discuss licensing or collaboration.

Was this actually tested in a real city environment?

The project delivered two demo milestones: a 2nd prototype and a consolidated final platform, both providing APIs and cloud-ready deployment images. The objective states it was demonstrated via Smart City applications for health, safety, and smarter city living. Based on available project data, real-world city pilots were part of the demonstration plan.

How does the platform handle data privacy and GDPR?

Privacy preservation was a core design goal — the objective explicitly describes the platform as 'privacy preserving and secure.' The platform was built during 2014-2017, before GDPR enforcement, so additional compliance work may be needed for current regulations. The architectural approach to privacy is embedded in the platform design.

Is the project still active or is the team available?

The project closed in September 2017. The consortium of 9 partners may still be active in related work. The University of Surrey coordinated the effort and would be the first point of contact for follow-up collaboration or technology transfer.

Consortium

Who built it

The iKaaS consortium brings together 9 partners from 6 European countries (DE, EL, ES, FI, IT, UK), with a healthy 44% industry ratio — 4 industry partners alongside 2 universities, 1 research organization, and 2 other entities. Two consortium members are SMEs, which typically signals practical commercialization intent rather than pure academic research. The University of Surrey led coordination, bringing strong academic credibility to the platform's Big Data and IoT foundations. For a business looking to adopt this technology, the multi-country spread means the platform was designed with cross-border interoperability in mind, and the industry partners likely contributed real-world requirements that kept the solution grounded in practical needs.

UNIVERSITY OF SURREYCoordinator · UK
EMPRESA MUNICIPAL DE TRANSPORTES DE MADRID SAparticipant · ES
WINGS ICT SOLUTIONS TECHNOLOGIES PLIROFORIKIS KAI EPIKOINONION ANONYMI ETAIREIAparticipant · EL
OULUN YLIOPISTOparticipant · FI
ATOS SPAIN SAparticipant · ES
INNOTEC21 GMBHparticipant · DE
AYUNTAMIENTO DE MADRIDparticipant · ES
FONDAZIONE BRUNO KESSLERparticipant · IT
COMUNIDAD DE MADRIDparticipant · ES

How to reach the team

University of Surrey (UK) — reach out through their research partnerships office or the project website

Order a report on this consortium See UNIVERSITY OF SURREY profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

Want an introduction to the iKaaS team? SciTransfer can connect you with the right consortium partner for your specific use case — whether you need the platform technology, a data analytics partnership, or a Smart City pilot collaboration.

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