THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE OPEN DATA TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SMART CITIES

Human as an intelligent being was always searching for ways to make his life easier. The first step that brought the spark of evolution was the fire and the wheel, and as the years were passing by, when the industrial revolution took place, that was the dawn of the new age of continuous and rapid technological advancements, aiming for improvement of wellbeing. Through the recent years of the economic crisis improvement of wellbeing was also connected to the reduction of costs, responsible use of energy sources and actions that produce general benefits to the society. Within this context, the term of the smart city resurfaced. In addition the open data projects encourage citizens or users to develop applications and digital services with the reuse of public data, in order to improve the quality and level of participation of public services. The purpose of this study is to discuss a brief history of the smart cities initiatives worldwide, while trying to sketch the most basic characteristics of a smart city. Also, some techniques are discussed in order to lead successfully to the preservation of the intelligent character of a city. However, someone always has to have in mind that the citizen is the most crucial part of the system that is called smart city and in order to be active participant of this evolution, s/he has to be also one of the recipients of the open data