The Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the main international event on smart cities and urban solutions organized by Fira de Barcelona, ​​brought together the urban innovation ecosystem to plan for a more sustainable and livable urbanized planet. From November 15 to 17 and under the motto Cities Inspired by People, 800 exhibitors, 700 cities and regions and more than 400 speakers gathered in Barcelona to jointly promote the transformation of metropolises around the world and to share knowledge and experiences.

The event brought together leading international experts and companies to address the challenges of urban transformation. To address the various areas involved, the conference program was structured around eight themes: Enabling Technologies, Energy and Environment, Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress, Governance, Life and Inclusion, Economy, Infrastructure and Buildings and Security and Protection.

Cities from five continents sent delegations to the SCEWC, such as Amsterdam, Atlanta, Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Doha, Frankfurt, Kyiv, New York, Paris, Quito, Reykjavik, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Seoul, Stockholm , Sydney, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Vienna. In addition, many countries showed their latest projects and solutions, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, South Korea, Spain, United States, Estonia, Finland, France, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia , Luxembourg, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.

Ugo Valenti, director of the SCEWC, stated, "It is a great honor for the Smart City Expo to once again be the capital of smart cities. The presence of more than 700 cities and a significant number of mayors and ministers from different countries strengthens our role. Barcelona and this event are central to the global urban renewal agenda elementa and the leading organizations in the sector are more than a place where they meet with clients once a year, they have become drivers of innovation and change in the urban landscape. Our goal has been to help transform the world into a better place and achieve a more sustainable and livable planet from day one."

Tools for reshaping an urban world

Urban solutions are a core element of the smart city ecosystem, and 800 exhibiting companies will showcase their latest products and technologies and show how they can help local governments redesign their cities. Among them are Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Dell & Nvidia, Deloitte, EDF, FCC Environment, Fiware, Honeywell, Microsoft, Moventia, Smart Ports: Piers of the Future and Sorigué.

Urban knowledge platform

The more than 400 experts who participated in the congress made SCEWC the leading global urban knowledge platform capable of covering all angles of urban transformation. Keynote speakers for this edition included architect Elizabeth Diller, gardener Ron Finley and mathematician Hannah Fry.

Diller has studied how to shape the behavior of public urban space and projects such as New York's High Line and The Shed on Hudson Docks is responsible for celebrities.

Ron Finley has led a green revolution in Los Angeles, where guerrilla gardening has turned South Central lots into gardens and neighbors are growing not only vegetables, but healthier communities in their gardens.

Hannah Fry teaches Urban Mathematics at University College London. And shopping and transportation have been able to decipher patterns of social activities ranging from urban crime, riots and terrorism.