Visitors Turn to IoT to Explore Milan Design Week

A smart city app that uses IoT technology helped visitors explore Fuorisalone, or Milan Design Week this April. Tourists and locals can use the Brera Smart District Mobile app to explore the most famous area of Milan, the Brera District.

Milan Design Week, made up of 138 small events, normally brings together over 200,000 people interested in telecommunications, food, fashion, art and automotive technology. Although it was initially created for the festival, more neighborhoods and cities in Italy are considered to be added in the future.

The app is a joint project between Comarch, a Polish international software house and systems integrator, and Studiolabo, the design studio behind the Brera Design District project.

“The app is a first step for us,” said Kamila Niekraszewicz, Comarch Italy”s country manager. “It was designed for a small but very important part of Milan, the vibrant Brera District and it is focused on the Milan Design Week. It benefits from the most important elements of Comarch Smart City Platform – beacons, location based services, interactive maps and offers engine.”

Milan is not the only city looking into implementing smart technology. Similar technology has been used for Sydney”s City Art Public Art Strategy and for easier navigation at Glastonbury festival. Comarch expects the smart city app will soon expand to the south of Europe and to the United States.

“We are planning to implement more versatile solutions soon,” Niekraszewicz added. “They are dedicated to whole cities and give users brand new possibilities. Smart City is a future. We”re glad it all started in Milan, a cradle of design and technology.”

The app gained instant popularity, receiving positive comments from users and registering hundreds of downloads and 73 commercial partnerships.