The smart cities/communities are living spaces where people decided to improve the quality of life by using modern ICT-based tools in order to form a better interaction with each other and optimize the use of energy, materials, services and finances.

E-institute is one of the pioneers in Slovenia as regards introducing the smart cities. The UPSIDE project (FP7) is the first Smart City project in Slovenia establishing smart city in Maribor and transferring good practices from Germany, Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark.

Regarding lack of large cities in Slovenia, the future orientation will be towards smaller smart cities, smart regions, smart communities and smart villages.