Engie – Demo for a Smart city hypervisor

Background

Angers is at the forefront of innovative Smart city solutions. The city currently hosts and deploys a powerful data-processing tool that gathers data flows from 9 services, from water treatment to CCTV and street lights.

The hypervisor acts as the city’s “digital twin,” making it possible for instance to remotely manage traffic lights, street lights, and cameras.

Objectives

We worked with teams at Engie Digital and Engie Ineo to adapt their “Livin” hypervisor into an application for the city of Angers. The objective of designing the customised app demo was to highlight the hypervisor’s main features, content, and specified themes in the context of a guided scenario.

Methods

To ensure the adoption of the tool by internal teams and to reflect real-life needs, we took on a codesign approach involving the different project stakeholders to create solutions collaboratively.

To gain a deep understanding of the use cases, we focused on a set of key actions: logging of activities, following up on reports sent in by citizens, communicating with public services… Using these tasks as a guide, we identified some scenarios and divided them into specific steps: planning, conditional triggers, management in real-time, monitoring, and improvement.

Outcomes

Ultimately, the hypervisor allows for the connection on one single infrastructure of multiple existing software (e.g. for the management of water networks, street lights, CCTV) in order to gain a consolidated view of the whole and to manage and anticipate issues.

By formalising the user journey and designing the app screens using Engie Digital’s own design system, we created a demo that Engie Digital was then easily able to work with independently. Their sales team is now equipped with a lasting and adaptable tool to present the company’s hypervision solution to new cities and wider markets.