It’s been a busy few weeks for the IoT ecosystem. Here, freelance technology writer Antony Savvas looks at developments and also considers some of the problems.

Hull will become the first city in the UK to benefit from its own purpose-built Smart City Operating System (OS). Using an Internet of Things (IoT) foundation to its digital strategy, the CityOS platform provided by Smart City Operator Connexin, enables Hull to become a programmable city.

Eight international scale-ups have just been chosen out of the 138 that entered the first edition of the Brazil Tech Award, which is the only Brazilian competition to attract innovative companies from all over the world to Brazil.

Smart agriculture is the science and art of improving farming with technology. Innovations in farming are by no means new – since the invention of the wheel and the plough, the industry has been adopting new tools and ways of working for centuries.

According to Frost and Sullivan’s smart cities report, the global market is forecast to be worth a staggering $1.56 trillion (€1.43 trillion) by 2025. This perhaps comes as no surprise given the continuous rise in the number of smart cities being ‘created’ world-wide, from Amsterdam, Dublin and Peterborough, to Dubai, Taipei and New York City.

From Lahore, Shanghai and New York City, to Barcelona, Manchester and Milton Keynes, we’re seeing an exponential rise in the number of smart cities being ‘created’ globally, with the intention of making citizens’ lives more convenient, secure and sustainable.

Telensa, the provider of connected street lighting and smart city data applications, announced that it has joined the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. The program connects cities, municipalities, government agencies and enterprises with end-to-end smart city solutions based on Qualcomm Technologies’ technology.

The digital twin concept and the urban modelling paradigm, more generally, are transforming how cities are designed, monitored, and managed.

The UK government is moving forward with its plans to create regulation for IoT devices. The move follows a broad global trend to try and lock down the burgeoning but insecure world of the IoT, says Mike Nelson, vice president of IoT Security at DigiCert.

In part one of this blog we discussed about the practical and economic benefits of smart city and smart technology. In the second part and the last part of the blog Harikrishna Kundariya co-founder, director of eSparkBiz Technologies explains, the Environmental benefits of smart city and technology.