The need to address various sustainability issues within urban environments is increasingly drawing the attention on smart cities. Global threats such as overpopulation and pollution gain relevance each year, endangering the sustainable growth of cities. In the face of such challenges, new solutions are required, exploiting technological advancements and novel approaches. Smart cities can benefit from a powerful entrepreneurial digital ecosystem: startups, due to their intrinsic characteristics, are frequently able to anticipate the market needs providing disruptive and technological solutions. Although other researches on the critical success factors for startups’ growth are mentioned in the literature, the specific cluster of startups providing “smart services” for smart cities is still unexplored. Therefore, this thesis could be viewed as one of the first approach on the topic, attempting to frame a primal scenario and representing a steppingstone towards future more detailed research. Thus, the thesis mainly produces a census, aiming to assess the current state-of-art of the digital startups providing solutions intended for improving the quality of life within urban contexts. A brief theoretical framework illustrating the main school of thoughts when referring to smart cities, enabling technologies, and digital startups ecosystem precedes the presentation of the research. A sample made by 365 digital startups was deeply examined, collecting different kinds of data from online sources. The US host most of the startups, which are for the majority at an initial development phase and propose smart mobility solutions. A wide range of services seems to guarantee higher funding, as well as a multi-technologic approach and past founders’ experience related to the establishment of previous startups.
La necessità di affrontare diverse questioni legate alla sostenibilità urbana sta focalizzando sempre più l'attenzione sul concetto di smart city. Minacce globali incombenti, come la sovrappopolazione e l'inquinamento, acquisiscono crescente rilevanza con il passare del tempo, mettendo a rischio la crescita sostenibile delle città. Di fronte a tali sfide si rivelano necessarie nuove soluzioni, che sfruttino i progressi tecnologici e approcci innovativi. Le smart city potrebbero beneficiare di un potente ecosistema imprenditoriale alimentato da startup tecnologiche, per caratteristiche spesso in grado di anticipare il mercato. Nonostante altre ricerche sui fattori critici di successo per la crescita delle startup siano menzionati in letteratura, il cluster specifico di startup che forniscono "servizi intelligenti" per smart cities è ancora inesplorato. Pertanto, questa tesi potrebbe essere vista come uno dei primi approcci sull'argomento, rappresentando un punto di partenza verso future ricerche più dettagliate. Per tale ragione, la tesi si propone principalmente come un lavoro di censimento, con l'obiettivo di inquadrare l'attuale state-of-art relativo alle startup digitali volte a migliorare la qualità della vita all'interno di contesti urbani. Un breve quadro teorico precede la presentazione della ricerca, con riferimenti alle principali correnti di pensiero legate al concetto di smart city, alle tecnologie adottate in tali contesti e alle dinamiche relative alle startup costituenti gli ecosistemi digitali utili ai fini della presentazione dei risultati durante i capitoli successivi. Abbiamo esaminato un campione realizzato da 365 startup digitali, raccogliendo numerose categorie di dati da diverse fonti online. Gli Stati Uniti ospitano la maggior parte delle startup, che si trovano principalmente in una fase iniziale di sviluppo e propongono soluzioni di smart mobility. Un'ampia gamma di servizi sembra garantire un finanziamento più elevato da parte degli investitori, così come un approccio multi-tecnologico ed il possedimento da parte dei fondatori di esperienza pregressa relativa alla creazione di startup nel passato.
An international census of startups offering smart city solutions
MAGGI, FILIPPO;Maddonini, Matteo
2019/2020
Abstract
The need to address various sustainability issues within urban environments is increasingly drawing the attention on smart cities. Global threats such as overpopulation and pollution gain relevance each year, endangering the sustainable growth of cities. In the face of such challenges, new solutions are required, exploiting technological advancements and novel approaches. Smart cities can benefit from a powerful entrepreneurial digital ecosystem: startups, due to their intrinsic characteristics, are frequently able to anticipate the market needs providing disruptive and technological solutions. Although other researches on the critical success factors for startups’ growth are mentioned in the literature, the specific cluster of startups providing “smart services” for smart cities is still unexplored. Therefore, this thesis could be viewed as one of the first approach on the topic, attempting to frame a primal scenario and representing a steppingstone towards future more detailed research. Thus, the thesis mainly produces a census, aiming to assess the current state-of-art of the digital startups providing solutions intended for improving the quality of life within urban contexts. A brief theoretical framework illustrating the main school of thoughts when referring to smart cities, enabling technologies, and digital startups ecosystem precedes the presentation of the research. A sample made by 365 digital startups was deeply examined, collecting different kinds of data from online sources. The US host most of the startups, which are for the majority at an initial development phase and propose smart mobility solutions. A wide range of services seems to guarantee higher funding, as well as a multi-technologic approach and past founders’ experience related to the establishment of previous startups.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/170962