Porto Digital: on the way to the knowledge based society City of ...

€2.5m, holds great potential for the future. It can be economically optimised through
commercial agreements with companies (Internet service providers).
The Business School of <strong>Porto</strong> prepared a sustainability plan for the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong>
Association, which concluded that the continuation of the association is economically
viable. The infrastructure and equipments owned by the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> Association could
commercially be exploited around services such as video surveillance systems (home and
business), remote monitoring and control of buildings across the Internet, city traffic
control, noise monitoring, air pollution monitoring, corporate TV, among others.
Furthermore, the “City of Jobs” could be self-sustainable if it operates not at local but on a
regional scale.
5.2. Transferability
The internal management tools developed by the project management team to help partners
undertake the right procedures regarding administrative and financial issues (i.e. project
implementation manual and the spreadsheets for collecting financial information) are
documents that could be of interest to projects co-funded by the Structural Funds (although
the manual is written in Portuguese).
All the results that were identified as the most innovative ones could be transferred to other
places, namely the broadband network infrastructure, the e-government services at the city
council, social inclusion via free access to ICT technologies, and the real estate electronic
system available on the Internet which will allow the purchase of real estate property.
However, regarding the real estate e-system, it is important to note this system, which is
still going through an experimental phase, could be an object of intellectual property
protection.
6. CONCLUSIONS: MAIN SUCCESS FACTORS
Project critical mass
Perhaps paradoxically, the project size and resources helped to make it a success rather
than leading to complications in implementation: 38 partners, 10 sub-projects and a budget
of more than €9m helped to concentrate the minds of all involved to ensuring success.
<strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> is a big and well-financed project with a rather impressive amount of results,
which have helped to make it a well-recognised initiative in the city.
Governance
The fact that there was a very strong group of promoters composed of prominent and
influential institutions in the city seems to be a very relevant aspect for the execution of a
quite complex project (i.e. many activities and actors). The involvement of these strong
entities in the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> Association, other than simply the city council, proved to be a
wise strategy. The high-ranking representatives from the founder institutions that
participate in the <strong>Porto</strong> <strong>Digital</strong> Association board are also significant asset.
Experienced project manager
The information technology profile of the project manager as well as his previous
experience in a similar project co-funded by the Portugal <strong>Digital</strong> programme, was decisive
in overcoming several difficulties related to technical problems, payment delays, slow
response from the programme managing authority, and the larger dimension of the project.
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