Smart City: cities, intelligent urban solutions and challenges

Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the leading international event on cities and smart urban solutions organized by Fira de Barcelona, reaches its 15th edition with the goal of showcasing technologies that are already contributing to responding to the most urgent urban challenges. Under the theme “Urban Solutions, Real Impact”, the event will bring together, from November 3 to 5, representatives from 1,000 cities, more than 27,000 attendees, over 1,100 exhibitors, and 600 speakers, reinforcing its role as a meeting point for public administrations, companies, and experts.

The event director, Ugo Valenti, stated that “for years we have spoken of the smart city as a promise. Today we know that, after almost a quarter of a century betting on smart cities, the technology exists and has already had an impact. The solutions we show are improving people's lives. Smart City Expo wants to be the place where cities, companies, and experts share experiences that yield good results so that they can be replicated wherever needed, whether to address extreme heat, congestion, or the lack of affordable housing”.

The housing crisis and the impact of artificial intelligence and new technologies on cities will be the focus of much of the debate at Smart City Expo. Over three days, the congress will bring together some of the most relevant figures in municipal politics and representatives of international institutions at the Fira de Barcelona Gran Via venue. Among the notable names are Anne Hidalgo, former mayor of Paris and global ambassador of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, and Andre Dickens, mayor of Atlanta.

In total, more than 600 experts from around the world will be part of a program of more than 150 sessions. Nikolas Badminton, Chief Futurist at Futurist.com and expert in artificial intelligence and strategic foresight, will open the main conference, while Ayumi Moore Aoki, founder of Women in Tech Global, will address diversity and inclusion as drivers of urban innovation.

Other confirmed speakers include Claudio Orrego, Governor of the Santiago Metropolitan Region of Chile; Carolina Mejía, Mayor of Santo Domingo; Teresa Riesgo, Secretary General for Innovation of the Spanish government; Paolo Guglielmini, Vice President of EMEA at NVIDIA; Kees Hertogh, Vice President of Global Industry Marketing at Microsoft; Rochelle Haynes, Managing Director of What Works Cities at Bloomberg Philanthropies; Nam Guan Ng, General Manager and Head of Global Smart Cities at Dell Technologies, and Bilel Jamoussi, Deputy Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau.

Smart City Expo will focus the global housing crisis debate around these and other experts –a total of 100– within HOWS Barcelona - Housing World Summit, the congress that it integrates into its program, around five axes: urban planning and land policy, housing regulation, social and affordable housing, innovation in construction, and renovation, rehabilitation, and reuse.

Among the speakers will also be Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, and Anna Minton, author and professor of Architecture at the University of East London. The summit will also host the Housing Mayors Roundtable, led by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, which will feature mayors from cities such as Milan, Budapest, Athens, and Atlanta.

Smart City will become the great summit of cities where companies and institutions will also showcase the most innovative urban solutions and the ongoing projects that are achieving the best results. Among the exhibitors will be Advantech, Arrive Group, Dahua Technology, Dell Technologies, Deutsche Telekom IoT, Esri, FCC Enviro, Google, Hanwha Vision, LoRa Alliance, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Ubiwhere, Urbio and Veolia.

Furthermore, the event will host numerous pavilions from countries and cities, including those from Germany, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, China, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Czech Republic and the Republic of Korea, as well as those from Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Madrid, Las Rozas and Tokyo.

Meeting point

SCEWC will once again give prominence to startups as a driver of new urban solutions through the Innovation Playground, the space dedicated to the most technological entrepreneurship, which will connect startups, investors, research centers, corporations, and administrations through live presentations, exhibitions, and immersive demonstrations.

The Housing Mayors Meeting, a closed-door working meeting between mayors, and the Strategic Autonomy session, aimed at analyzing how cities can strengthen their digital strategic autonomy, are also part of the agenda of activities programmed by the Barcelona City Council. Also, the City Peers meetings, behind closed doors, will serve for municipal officials from different fields to meet with organizations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, C40, the World Economic Forum, and Metropolis to share best practices and learn from each other.

The event will be held jointly with Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress, Tomorrow.Blue Economy, Barcelona Deep Tech Summit, and Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress, consolidating Barcelona as a meeting point for urban innovation.