Smart City
Kalin Kostadinov
City Living Lab Manager @ GATE Institute
Talk TopicFrom Data to Decisions: Sofia's Digital Twin and City Living Lab in Practice
About the speaker
City Living Lab Manager at GATE Institute. Leads the Lab's work on turning urban data into decisions - from sensor networks and mobile mapping to Sofia's 3D digital twin and privacy-preserving mobility data - across EU research projects and partnerships with cities and industry.
About the talk
Talk DescriptionGATE Institute's City Living Lab in Sofia works with the municipality to turn city data into better decisions for the city and its residents. The talk shows how this is done in practice: which data the Lab collects - noise and pedestrian sensors, LiDAR and 360 degree street scans - and how it comes together in a 3D digital twin of the city to answer concrete questions about pedestrian flows, noise, sensor placement and planning scenarios. We share lessons from Sofia on what a city needs to get started. The session then looks ahead to what the Lab is building next: CityRhythm, a travel-tracking app that detects residents' journeys passively while only legally anonymous aggregates ever reach the city, and the data spaces and AI-ready tools that could let cities, researchers and companies build on shared city data.
Key TakeawaysWhich data a city can realistically collect today - fixed sensors, mobile mapping, residents' phones, municipal data - what each is good for and where it falls short. How a 3D digital twin becomes a working tool for city management rather than a showpiece: linking data to decisions on pedestrian flows, noise, sensor placement and planning scenarios. A privacy architecture for mobility data that never gives the city raw locations - only legally anonymous aggregates leave residents' phones. A practical starting path for a city without a living lab, using data it already has. Where this is heading: data spaces and AI-ready tools that could let companies and researchers build on shared city data.