SMARCTIC project has been officially launched in presence of the project partners and key stakeholder groups of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The event has taken place in Derry city's Guild Hall (Northern Ireland), on the 22nd of January, hosted by Derry City and Strabane District Council project partner.

SMARCTIC will develop and implement a SEMM (Smart Energy Management Model) adapted from existing smart city models in the EU’s Northern Periphery and Artic Areas. Juanita Blue, project manager of SMARCTIC, presented the project to some partners and stakeholders.

Afterwards, Daragh McDonagh, from Donegal County Council (Ireland), talked about the prospects of the real-world implementation of IOT devices and Ragnar Asmundsson from Varmalausnir - HeatRD (Iceland) spoke about the technical and cultural challenges that they are facing in the Arctic area.

During the coffee break participants had the opportunity to network and after that, Dr Nick Timmons from Wisar Lab (Ireland) presented IoT and Wireless Technology for SMART Energy Rural Communities.

Professors of Ulster University Maurice Mulvenna and Malachy McElhom spoke about machine learning of energy data and smart energy on dairy farms. Ms Joan Mulvihill and David McGaffey from Siemens showed the importance of the building environments and how to turn them into perfect places using the data information available from the buildings.

After that, Eddie McGoldrick, co-founder of PowerOn Technologies, talked about emerging energy services market in Ireland. To conclude the seminar, the director of Digital Catapult, Adrian Johnston, explained the importance of digital technology integration for smart energy communities.