Porto is a technological hub, and innovation is part of its DNA. Its entrepreneurial ecosystem, supported by industry and universities, has attracted numerous investors, start-ups, and technology companies that have set up here. Furthermore, Porto Innovation Hub proposes creating new opportunities for innovation on an urban scale, contributing to the culture of innovation in the city and encouraging citizen participation and involvement.
The aim is to make Porto an attractive and dynamic city, a living laboratory for experimentation and entrepreneurship, and an example of making technology serve the community.
Portugal, according to a recent report by the European Commission, has become a top performer in terms of fast broadband (NGA) coverage and fixed Very High-Capacity Network (VHCN) coverage. In addition, Portugal’s overall communications technology has been ranked the 8th best in the world by the 2022 World Digital Competitiveness ranking of IMD. The city of Porto, in particular, boasts citywide fibre-to-the-home coverage and a reliable 4G/5G mobile network that places it among the top 25 cities in Europe with the fastest internet, according to the Speedtest Global Index.
Another standout feature of the city’s telecommunications infrastructure is its extensive public WiFi network, one of Europe’s largest. Hundreds of free hotspots are available throughout the city in parks, buses, and stations. The fibre optic infrastructure that supports “Porto Free WiFi” also supports the “Eduroam” network, which is accessed by more than 245,000 university students, 40% of them international students, from more than 3,000 educational institutions around the world, who visit the city on business or tourism.
The city participates in several collaborative projects to address digital challenges and opportunities, such as OASC (Open & Agile Smart Cities) network, “Living_In.EU” initiatives, coordinated by the European Commission and Eurocities, Cities Coalition for Digital Rights (CC4DR), developed in partnership with New York, Amsterdam and Barcelona and 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge.
Measure the pulse of Porto. Porto’s socio-economic information platform, Leme, results from the need to create a system of easy access to socioeconomic data about the city of Porto, which until then had been dispersed across various internal and external sources.
Leme has hundreds of socioeconomic indicators about Porto, serving as a knowledge hub that combines the latest data available in several key categories, including demography, consumption, business, talent, health, real estate, and, obviously, tourism. Data is updated mostly automatically, allowing around 270 indicators to be monitored, tracking evolution over time.
Aiming to stimulate the economy and to revitalise commerce, the Baixa (downtown) and Bombarda (art district) neighbourhoods are being transformed into “Digital Commerce Neighbourhoods”.
The project intends to enhance street trading, helping merchants manage their businesses by providing resources to make their trading more efficient, to raise the visibility of their products and services and to allow them to reach more clients. Its focus on the consumer offers them more convenience and agility, as well as access to combined information about what the neighbourhood has to offer.
The project, implemented by Porto Digital, includes creating a “Neighbourhood Manager”, who will be responsible for ensuring the execution of these campaigns, supporting merchants, and monitoring the data collected.
Andante is the ticket for public transport in the Porto Metropolitan Area, which includes bus, metro and train networks. It is simple, practical, and affordable – there are multimodal options in one ticket or on the same card.
Charging Andante physical cards has become easier with the new TOP UP function, now available for Android and iOS cell phones. To top up the card, the user simply has to turn on the NFC functionality and touch their cell phone to the Andante reader, choose their option, make the payment and travel. This initiative has a significant impact on the progressive dematerialisation of ticketing.
