**1. Introduction**

Uncontrolled and rapid urban growth has given rise to different issues affecting Quality of Life (QoL) [1–5]. QoL is defined by the World Health Organization as "individuals' perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live, and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns" [6] and relates to their happiness, security, well-being, ecology, resilience, and global awareness. Some of these problems affecting QoL include energy generation and distribution, traffic (mobility), unequal housing, health, education, environment (air, water, soil), etc. [1,7,8]. A collaborative framework involving the citizens, government, academia, and private sector is crucial to minimize the impact of these problems. The use of integrated and interconnected technological developments, supported by information and data, enables this framework to propose different solutions to improve the overall QoL of the citizens [2,9–11]. This concept is referred to as a Smart City and could be described as a living laboratory or hubs driven by innovation to meet global standards [12,13], in which political, social and environmental decisions are made based on data [14].

Figure 1 depicts the Smart City logical framework, including its various components and stakeholders or key actors. This framework begins with the needs and challenges the city is facing, called Pain Points [15]. A crucial step is an initial selective process or screening, during which the technical, economical, and social feasibility is considered

**Citation:** Huertas, J.I.; Mahlknecht, J.; Lozoya-Santos, J.d.J.; Uribe, S.; López-Guajardo, E.A.; Ramirez-Mendoza, R.A. Campus City Project: Challenge Living Lab for Smart Cities. *Appl. Sci.* **2021**, *11*, 11085. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/app112311085

Academic Editors: Edris Pouresmaeil and Andreas Sumper

Received: 31 August 2021 Accepted: 28 October 2021 Published: 23 November 2021

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by all stakeholders participating in the decision making process: citizens, government, academia, private sector, investors, and entrepreneurs (upper right part of Figure 1) [1,16]. The creation or modernization of public policies is a crucial step within this framework, especially in regards to the material, economic and human resources available to contribute to these projects and reach the goal of transforming a community or a city into a smart environment [16]. Moreover, feedback cycles are important to ensure an effective and efficient implementation of the project solutions. Feedback is based on data, digital technologies and interconnected visualization dashboards (Internet of Things, Information Systems, Artificial Intelligence etc. [2,11]) that allow the dissemination and socialization of the finished and ongoing projects. Finally, the framework's main goal is to affect the different dimensions related to the Smart City's habitability and QoL.

**Figure 1.** Logical framework of a Smart City.

At this point, it is important to highlight the role of the academic institution. The university becomes a key stakeholder for: (1) the identification of solutions for the Pain Points based on innovation, interconnectivity, and research and, (2) the development of human resources with the necessary skills to provide solutions, management, and technology at different levels in a Smart City. Additionally, the active involvement of research institutes and universities is required to sustain an open innovation ecosystem that could drive technological development [17,18].

In 2015, the United States launched an initiative to promote research, innovation, and entrepreneurship (RIE) in university campuses called the "Smart City Challenge" project [19]. With the participation of 78 cities, the project concluded that citizen wellbeing is highly influenced by connectivity, information about the city's resources and the need for better mobility. Moreover, various initiatives have studied and developed the transformation of university campuses into smart living laboratories, through which different projects

could potentially be scaled up to solve the Pain Points of a city [20–23]. Even though these works provide insight into the operation, organization, technological infrastructure, and methods used, only few studies provide some information on how they could use the Smart Campus concept as a learning mechanism for students [22,24,25]. Further work is required to develop Smart Campuses with educational models that can meet the needs of a Smart City while enhancing the learning experience of the students and providing them with the knowledge and skills required to solve different real-life challenges or Pain Points.

Inspired by the RIE results and the above-mentioned needs, the transformation of the Tecnologico de Monterrey university's main campus in the city of Monterrey, Mexico, and of its neighboring communities was established as a key part of its strategic plan for 2020: to generate sustainable spaces and sustainable conditions for RIE. This project, called Distrito Tec, focuses on enabling the creation of a dynamic, safe and inspiring community, one that attracts and retains talent while promoting the development and positioning of the city and the country in general. Distrito Tec´s objective is to improve the urban area and the quality of life of nearby communities (with over 26,333 residents). This includes offering open and renewed spaces, as well as access to different campus facilities and social programs.

The inherent challenges of the Monterrey campus´ transformation into a smart community represents the perfect opportunity for its students to develop the competencies needed to assess various real-life industrial and environmental problems and to understand key concepts of a Smart City [26]. This particular plan to use the Smart Campus concept as a learning mechanism for students within the Distrito Tec project is called the Campus City initiative. The main objectives of this initiative are: (1) to establish the idea among the student community that the campus is their home and that, as its citizens, it is their responsibility to take care of it; (2) to establish a relationship between the university's researchers and professional students to jointly develop solutions through the application of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); (3) to propose solutions that improve the citizens´ experience under the premise "society, planet, profit" (triple bottom line) through research, applied research, innovation and collaboration; and (4) to create a living laboratory (Challenge Living Lab) where teachers systematically identify, define and implement learning challenges based on the main problems that cities face. The Campus City initiative involves collaboration between the university's academic community, industries and the government, using Tecnologico de Monterrey's infrastructure of innovation laboratories to answer the main research question: how to promote a scalable Smart City framework that also provides a learning environment to engage and motivate students while helping them develop the necessary competencies to solve the smart community´s Pain Points through innovation.

Additionally, Tecnologico de Monterrey launched its new educational model "Tec21" in August 2019, with "Challenge-Based Learning" (CBL) as its central axis, where the definition and development of real-world challenges are used to guide and accelerate the learning process. Tec21 [27,28] is a unique and customizable model that promotes the development of competitive, competent individuals that can tackle any real-world challenge through research and innovation. This is catalyzed by inspiring professors who employ significant real-life challenges that motivate and engage students to create a memorable experience and trigger the learning process that is vital for their formation. Fundamentally, the Tec21 educational model could be described as a student-centered model characterized by four main components/pillars: (a) challenge-based learning, (b) flexibility, (c) highly trained and inspiring professors and, (d) memorable educational experiences [28–30]. All undergraduate programs at Tecnologico de Monterrey follow this disruptive model, which has been implemented in all 26 Tecnologico de Monterrey campuses with promising results regarding its implementation and the students´ learning experience [31–33].

Therefore, this work answers the need for a Smart Campus City framework which could be used as a base model to be scaled up and applied in a Smart City, while developing competent professionals prepared to face these challenges. Specifically, the main objectives of this work are: (1) to present an overall framework and methodology based on an innovation ecosystem that could be used to select the community's Pain Points; (2) to provide a dynamic platform in which Pain Points from the different verticals axes could be used as pedagogic opportunities to favor the development of competencies in an engineering syllabus; and (3) to present an example of the pedagogic design and implementation of a Campus City Challenge, while discussing the involvement of different stakeholders and the pedagogic learnings obtained from the experience.

This work is organized as follows:


#### **2. Campus City Initiative Main Components**

*2.1. Smart City Verticals: Smart Mobility, Water and Energy Definitions*

Mobility, Energy and Water are the main vertical axes of a smart city, united under a common premise: reducing economic and environmental costs, and saving time through the use of data, information and telecommunication. The citizens' quality of life and their perception of the city they live in will improve through intelligent systems that can optimize the administration of resources and inform them about the status and availability of mobility, water and energy resources.

Smart Mobility—a series of initiatives, policies and actions whose main objective is to promote cleaner, safer and more efficient forms of transportation and to facilitate mobility via public or private transportation throughout the city.

Smart Water—the use of data acquisition systems, prediction and cognition models, as well as information systems to allow better decision-making by the users and the water infrastructure agency in terms of its accumulation, monitoring, distribution and traceability.

Smart Energy—to achieve a transition towards greater balance in the distribution and use of energy from renewable sources (sun and wind among others) and fossil fuels, with the purpose of polluting less and improving energy consumption through the use of environmentally friendly and safer technologies.

#### *2.2. Open Innovation Ecosystem*

An open innovation ecosystem is fundamental for delivering high-quality service. This is facilitated by the interconnectedness of different technological platforms, services and providers [4]. The Campus City initiative is based on this model of open innovation (shown in Figure 2). The value proposition of this initiative is to offer challenges that are relevant to the Tec21 model and to create high-impact innovation projects for the industry and the community. This could be achieved through the implementation of the academic innovation platform and using Distrito Tec as a Challenge Living Lab (described in Section 2.3).

**Figure 2.** Campus City initiative general innovation model.

The Campus City initiative was designed to achieve the following goals:

	- • Identification and design of meaningful challenges that support our learning model.
	- • Strong involvement of the Academic Community (lecturers, students, researchers, collaborators).
	- • Increased competitiveness through technology development to solve the requested Pain Points.
	- • Creation of new businesses through the implementation of disruptive technologies.
	- • Creation of high-social impact technologies, which reduce or eliminate major community challenges.
	- • Development of applied research to close the science-technology gap and solve complex challenges for industry and the community.

These goals are focused on the three Campus City verticals (Smart Water, Smart Energy and Smart Mobility) affecting the entirety of the Distrito Tec infrastructure, as shown in Figure 2. These three verticals will dictate the focus of the project and if a project does not comply with the objectives of one of the three main verticals, then the project is rejected. This strategy allows a better allocation of efforts and resources, increasing the chance of success.

The Campus City initiative working model is shown in Figure 3. This working model comprises three major stages: value discovery, execution and tech transfer. Throughout these stages, two main groups of actors have been defined to guide the initiatives. The first main actor corresponds to the stakeholders, in this case the industry, academia (campus) and governmen<sup>t</sup> (top horizontal axis in Figure 3). The stakeholders provide problems and challenges from their specific sector. In this sense, the stakeholders can be considered as the Market Pull. The second main actor is the Campus City core team from Tecnologico the Monterrey, which includes the innovation area, steering committee, post-docs, partner professors and students (bottom horizontal axis in Figure 3). The Campus City core team offers the Technology Push. Information will flow between these two main groups of actors throughout the different steps or processes, allowing all parties to reach a consensus on the challenges to be solved.

**Figure 3.** Campus City working model.

Regarding the stakeholders in Figure 3, the industry refers to companies that are related to the production, consumption and distribution of water and energy resources, and to how people move around urban settings. These companies have already determined their strategies and technological roadmaps. They have their own research groups, but they are always on the lookout for highly disruptive external partners. The opportunity for universities lies in solving their current challenges from a disruptive perspective and identifying new challenges that they had not even imagined or thought of, complementing the blind spot that all companies develop. The governmen<sup>t</sup> has designed and implemented public policy directives relating to water, energy and mobility. For this reason, the authorities must also contribute and make recommendations regarding the analysis and development of these technologies and solutions.

Moreover, governmen<sup>t</sup> entities have been supporting the development of these solutions by:


The accompaniment of governmen<sup>t</sup> entities, through the previous concrete actions, has encouraged students and researchers in the search for solutions to the country's problems under the Campus City initiative.

As mentioned above, the stakeholders and the core team will manage and implement different processes to reach an agreemen<sup>t</sup> on which challenges could meet the Campus City goals. This four-step process is described below.

Step#1:Identifyingthemainchallenges, prioritiesandstrategicfocusesineacharea.

Step #2: Breaking down the large problems into strategic problem areas that require the development of specific technological solutions and identifying a list of projects that are of common interest. Step 1 and 2 should be revisited and discussed once a year by the stakeholders and the core team.

Step #3: Obtaining and evaluating input from both internal and external stakeholders to select the best projects, those with a higher priority and that deserve the allocation of resources.

Step #4: Separating the specific problems into innovation, applied research, and Tec21 challenges. The Decision Committee, formed by the Campus City core team, analyzes the ideas that qualify to become projects, classifies them into innovation projects or applied research projects, and determines which problems could be introduced as Tec21 challenges.

Once those projects are identified and classified, they are assigned resources, researchers/professors, students, etc. in order to be executed and verified. The intention is for these projects is to end up as a functional prototype proven on Campus City (in the field). Moreover, the goal is to innovate, and innovation is achieved when the technological development is adopted by a user or a market, thus transforming science and technology into a profitable solution (recognition). In innovation it is important to stay focused and to be able to act fast. Therefore, the above-mentioned steps are distributed into three main categories to manage this innovation (Figure 3): (1) value discovery (or the discovery of the opportunity), (2) the execution, and (3) the technological transfer towards the final users or clients.

The ideas selected for Tec21 from the project list are sent to the Challenge Living Lab (Section 2.3) where these challenges will be transformed into suitable projects for classes. This transformation requires a methodology that complies with certain pedagogical aspects. After going through the Challenge Living Lab, the projects can be released as challenges that are executable by the students.

#### *2.3. Challenge Living Lab*

The Challenge Living Lab is a platform through which a problem is proposed and continuously developed as part of a project selected by the stakeholders and the core team. These projects must have a high social and pedagogic impact because the students' motivation increases when they are involved in projects where the knowledge learned has a meaningful purpose [34–36]. Moreover, this platform is key for the development of a Smart Campus, since it introduces or develops different technologies in an educational environment [25].

The main objectives of the Challenge Living Lab are systematic innovation, promotion of research efforts, formation of leaders, interconnectivity/data use and fostering multidisciplinary cooperation between public and private institutions with society. This includes a multidisciplinary communication effort between different institutions (university-companies) that provides information, data, technological, economical and human resources and different methodologies needed to promote research ventures that deal with different Pain Points. Moreover, the Challenge Living Lab strengthens and synergistically combines with Tecnologico de Monterrey's academic programs; that is, the students are actively involved in different learning environments that lead to the development of solutions for the problems being experienced by the community, companies or campus users. This involves close cooperation between these stakeholders and collaboration with colleagues to develop socially responsible ventures [34]. To achieve this, Campus City can be integrated into the Tecnologico de Monterrey's educational programs. Figure 4 illustrates the stages of the Challenge Living Lab, as well as the Challenge Based Learning pedagogic model.

**Figure 4.** Campus City Challenge Living Lab virtuous loop and Challenge-Based Learning pedagogic methodology.

The Challenge Living Lab's virtuous loop consists of different components (Figure 4) that synergistically work towards the development of a pedagogic challenge based on the sustainable problems of the community, in this case the university district. The first component, Filter, refers to the selection of a project or challenge from both a technical-economic feasibility and cost-effective perspective, while considering the project's main impact on the different Campus City verticals. The second component, Research-Development-Innovation, denotes the availability of the technological and human resources to address the selected challenges. Within this component, different research groups and students are selected to address the challenge. The third component, Training, refers to the formative aspect of the challenge; that is, the challenge becomes a means for the development of competencies and skills in students. This component is naturally aligned with the objectives of Tecnologico de Monterrey's Tec21 educational model. Organization and Adjustment denotes the continuous improvement of the model based on feedback from the stakeholders and students. This component allows the documentation of the challenges, their successes and their areas of opportunity. Finally, Recognition refers to acknowledging the participation of all the parties involved.

As mentioned above, Challenge-Based Learning becomes the fundamental pedagogic approach for Campus City project. CBL focuses on the development on competencies as well as hard and soft-skills required to solve the Pain Points of a community or stakeholder [34,37–39] within an innovative and flexible learning environment [34,40,41]. Combined with Flipped Classroom techniques, this pedagogic approach promotes high levels of engagemen<sup>t</sup> and motivation within the students since they develop a sense of meaningful purpose through the learning process [34].

The following section describes in detail the challenge obtained from the abovementioned process for the Smart Energy vertical axis as an example of the structure, pedagogic intentions and objectives of a typical challenge under the Campus City project. This description includes the overall objectives of the challenge, the pedagogic intentions and methodology followed by the students. For Smart Mobility and Smart Water, a brief description of the challenge and their components (stakeholders, methodology and objectives) could be found in the Supplementary Material Document S1 (Figures S1 and S2) [41–46]. Finally, Section 4 presents an overall discussion on the learnings and results.

#### **3. Campus City Challenge—Smart Energy**

#### *3.1. Smart Energy Challenge—Smart Classrooms for the Post-COVID Era*

The pedagogic objective of this challenge is to engage students in the topic of energy consumption in buildings and the operation of heating and ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Since the operation of HVAC systems is the main source of energy consumption in buildings, this challenge looks for alternatives to minimize this energy consumption and possibly transform new and existing buildings into buildings with net zero energy consumption. External partners involved in the challenge were Distrito Tec and the Managing divisions related to physical infrastructure of Tecnologico de Monterrey (maintenance/physical plant department).
