Jaume Figueras, Head of GIS projects at inLab FIB,  has won the Living Labs Global Award this year for the city of Terrassa. The project named CityWalking, has had the collaboration of Toni Guasch and was one of the 137 proposals.

Twenty-one global cities from Asia, Africa, Europe, North and Latin America have announced the winners of the Living Labs Global Award 2012 (LLGA 2012) in Rio de Janeiro. The Award presented major urban challenges faced by cities such as Barcelona, San Francisco, Cape Town, Mexico City, Birmingham, Rio de Janeiro or Lagos, to which 555  companies from about 50 countries responded by presenting their innovative solutions.

The Terrassa City Council was aware of the increasingly sedentary life of its citizens and the increment of illnesses this fact causes. Therefore, they searched for a solution to promote sports among the population. The jury decided that the best solution to this problem is CityWalking because it encourages citizens to walk around the city, to discover it and at the same time to keep fit, using a website and a mobile application.

CityWalking offers several walking routes to prevent the user from falling into repetition, getting bored and stop walking. This project allows users to choose the route depending on several parameters such as the distance or time they want to spend. Furthermore, the application monitors the user while walking, using technologies currently available in mobile phones such as GPS and accelerometers. The application provides geographic information and views of the city, as well as details of commerce and resources that can be discovered during the routes. This makes trips even more interesting.

In addition, the system will store information about walked routes in the cloud, which can then be accessed through the website and shared with other users such as family or friends. This information will be available to health specialists so they can suggest new customized plans according to age, sex, time or other parameters and adapt them to walkers’ goals.

The winners will now have the opportunity to implement their solution in real-life and work alongside stakeholders in different cities to prove their impact.

More information on the competition can be found on Living Labs Global Award 2012 website.