Getting Started
Purpose of This Document
This document provides a lightweight onboarding and orientation guide for participants joining the Smart Cities SIG.
The objective is to help new participants quickly understand:
- what the initiative is,
- why it exists,
- where to find key information,
- how collaboration works,
- and how to begin contributing effectively within the Smart Cities SIG ecosystem.
This document is intended to help municipalities, standards organizations, industry participants, academia, and ecosystem contributors participate constructively without requiring deep prior knowledge of the initiative structure or standards processes.
What is the Smart Cities SIG?
The Smart Cities SIG is a collaborative and implementation-neutral ecosystem initiative focused on:
- interoperability alignment,
- reusable interoperability approaches,
- semantic and standards mappings,
- and practical Proof of Concept activities driven by real operational needs and use cases.
The initiative aims to help municipalities and ecosystem participants collaboratively analyze interoperability challenges and reusable approaches across smart city domains.
Why Does the Initiative Exist?
The Smart Cities SIG was created to help provide a practical and collaborative environment where:
- municipalities can bring real operational needs, business requirements, use cases, and interoperability pain points,
- ecosystem participants can collaboratively analyze interoperability challenges,
- and participating organizations can help refine reusable interoperability approaches and ecosystem alignment activities.
The initiative is intended to complement existing standards organizations, ecosystem alliances, interoperability programs, and related industry initiatives rather than compete with them.
The official scope and objectives of the initiative are described in:
Recommended First Steps
New participants are encouraged to review the following documents in order:
- README.md
High-level overview of the initiative. - foundation/vision.md
Long-term interoperability vision and ecosystem objectives. - foundation/ecosystem-positioning.md Explains how the Smart Cities SIG positions itself within the broader ecosystem.
- governance/charter.md
Official initiative scope and objectives. - governance/the-way-we-work.md
Operational collaboration model and working practices. - CONTRIBUTING.md
Contribution expectations and collaboration guidance. - program/roadmap/release-planning.md
Current roadmap, milestones, and execution phases. - governance/folder-structure.md
Repository structure and organization.
Participation Expectations
Participation in the Smart Cities SIG is:
- open,
- collaborative,
- implementation-neutral,
- and voluntary.
Participants are expected to:
- collaborate constructively,
- support practical interoperability discussions,
- respect roadmap priorities and execution phases,
- and contribute openly within the collaboration framework of the initiative.
Organizations actively participating in the initiative are expected to review and sign:
Participants are also encouraged to review:
How Collaboration Works
The initiative primarily collaborates through:
- meetings,
- GitHub Issues,
- Pull Requests,
- supporting documents,
- and related ecosystem discussions.
Meeting records and collaboration activities are maintained under:
The operational collaboration model is described in:
Participants are encouraged to first observe ongoing discussions, roadmap priorities, and active Proof of Concept activities before introducing significant new proposals or scope extensions.
How to Contribute
Participants are encouraged to:
- contribute interoperability challenges and use cases,
- share operational pain points and lessons learned,
- participate in Proof of Concept activities,
- contribute supporting material and reusable approaches,
- and collaborate openly with other ecosystem participants.
Contribution guidance is available in:
Roadmap and Execution Phases
The initiative follows a phased execution model intended to support practical delivery and interoperability validation activities aligned with the Smart City Expo Barcelona timeline.
Contributors are encouraged to review the current roadmap and execution phase before introducing significant new proposals or scope extensions.
The roadmap is maintained in:
Repository Structure
The repository is organized to support:
- governance documentation,
- program coordination,
- profile development,
- meeting records,
- ecosystem collaboration artifacts,
- and supporting interoperability activities.
The target repository structure is described in:
Questions and Coordination
Questions related to participation, onboarding, or collaboration activities may be raised through:
- GitHub Issues,
- initiative meetings,
- or designated SIG coordination contacts.
Additional tooling and access information is available in: