Each year, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) Awards Program offers a series of high-profile events to inspire and connect leaders from across the globe. Mark your calendars for these key conferences in the 2025 Awards cycle, each hosted in an Intelligent Community renowned for its forward-thinking initiatives and unique contributions to the global Intelligent Community movement.

In Roman times, when it was called Miacum, the city may once have been the original center of the Spanish capital. In the second half of the 20th Century, it was largely a bedroom community for the modern Madrid, prospering from that city’s prosperity. Today, Las Rozas de Madrid is home to nearly 15,000 companies and self-employed workers. It is a mecca for shoppers from around the world and boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in the Madrid region. Yet its average office prices are half that of Madrid, which is one factor in its success in attracting foreign companies to locate there. Nearly one quarter of the 500 largest companies in Las Rozas are foreign owned.

Innovation Engine

Another success factor has been Las Rozas Inova, the Municipal Company for Innovation, Technological Development, Digital Transformation and Entrepreneurship. Through programs, facilities and grants, it identifies private and public-sector opportunities and marshals the resources to seize them. Among its programs are ones that will be familiar to most Intelligent Communities: hackathons, innovation challenges, technology pilots, business incubation, support for the digital transformation of existing businesses and participation in national and EU innovation projects. They deliberately cross over between private and public, from entrepreneurial co-working spaces and startup funding to automation of city waste collection and remote management of the municipal irrigation network.

Multi-Level Workforce Development

Such a strong business community requires a skilled workforce. The municipal government has taken care to spread workforce development across the generations and from schools to employers. A Pact for Skills creates and maintains training partnership among schools, research institutes, companies and nonprofits. Its Emprende program serves adults with previous professional experience who look to reboot their careers, as well as university and vocational students and the leaders of local businesses. It offers training in innovation practices, digital skills and business planning and development, as well as competitions to develop solutions for business problems. Its municipal bootcamp program provides 300 hours of training in programming and advanced digital competencies, concluding with a demo day where participants showcase their skills to established companies and startups. Of the first 25 participants – of whom more than half were women – six gained employment after the demo day, while others continued receiving coaching, technical resources and job opportunities.

Wireless Connection and Mobility

Las Rozas is already served by more than 10 ISPs offering a full range of services, with both availability and adoption approaching 100%. With no serious broadband gaps to manage, the city has focused connectivity innovation on its important retail sector. That sector was hard-hit by the pandemic and the city responded by planning and deploying a high-density Wi-Fi network across more than a dozen retail and commercial districts,. On this wireless broadband foundation, the city is creating a digital platform that provides real-time mapping of subscriber locations and audience segmentation by behavior, gender and age group, together with the ability to promote products, services and events subscribers.

The city has also focused digital inclusion on its commercial sector. Las Rozas Inova engaged consultants experienced in digitization of small business as Digital Sherpas to provide free counseling to business owners. Recognizing that technology is easy while changing cultural attitudes is hard, Las Rozas Inova started with a pilot program for 8 percent of the city’s businesses. Positive feedback from users led to full launch with a goal of engaging 30% of local businesses.

The economic strength of Las Rozas brings with it rising traffic congestion that harms air quality, economic opportunity and quality of life. The city funded a discount rideshare program operated by a private-sector company in 2022 that attracted 1,000 participants, whose more than 7,000 shared rides avoided 36,000 kg of carbon emissions over its 6-month startup. It was part of a larger mobility action plan developed through surveys of 2,000 residents and visitors that established the baselines for programs like ridesharing to be evaluated.

Sustainability Imperative

Environmental sustainability is a priority for Las Rozas. Recent projects include installation of an air-quality sensor network to provide real-time monitoring of conditions, and solar energy installation on municipal buildings. Municipal waste collection has been automated to improve service and reduce unnecessary collection trips, while remote management of irrigation for the city’s many green areas has reduced water use by more than 100,000 cubic meters, saving 40% of the water supply budget the first year.

A FarmBot at La Talaverona in Las Rozas. June 2024

Las Rozas has benefited handsomely from its location in the Madrid capital region, which leads the nation in GDP. It is a community intent on leading rather than following, however, through innovation, education, connectivity and digital services that build inclusive growth, a high quality of life and a sustainable future for its people.

Population: 98,621

Website: www.lasrozas.es

Smart21 2024