"The 'smart city' is all the rage, but few people see the full scope of what a smart city means."— MIT Technology Review in Spanish
This MIT Media Lab initiative is turning the unique Pyrenean country into a testing ground for urban planning. But Alonso asserts that "it makes no sense for MIT to go somewhere and say, 'This is what you need to do.'" For him, the key is to support cities in their search for solutions based on the interpretation of their data and technological tools. To do this, they mine and cross-reference cell phone tower data to study mobility, deploy sensors in schools to measure energy efficiency, and test an autonomous electric tricycle developed in the same lab.