Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the leading international event on cities and smart urban solutions organized by Fira de Barcelona will bring together the ecosystem of urban innovation to define a plan for a more sustainable and livable urbanized planet. From November 15 to 17 and under the theme Cities inspired by people, more than 800 exhibitors, 700 cities and regions and 400 speakers will gather in Barcelona to push together the transformation of metropolises around the world and to share knowledge and experiences.

The event will bring together the best international experts and companies to address the challenges of urban transformation. To cover the many areas involved, the congress program will be structured around eight themes: Enabling Technologies, Energy & Environment, Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress, Governance, Living & Inclusion, Economy, Infrastructure & Buildings, and Safety & Security.

Cities from five continents will send delegations to the SCEWC, including 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. Likewise, many countries will showcase their latest projects and solutions, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

SCEWC director Ugo Valenti said that “Becoming the capital of smart cities again is a huge honor for Smart City Expo. Hosting over 700 cities and a significant number of mayors and ministers from different countries reinforces our role as a key part of the global urban innovation agenda. Barcelona and the event are more than the place where the main organizations of the sector meet their clients once a year, they have become a driving force for innovation and change in the urban landscape. And being able to help transform the world into a better place and create a more sustainable and livable planet has been our goal since day one.

Tools to reshape the urban landscape

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

The more than 400 experts attending the Congress will make SCEWC the first global urban knowledge platform capable of covering all angles of the transformation of cities. Keynote speakers for this edition include architect Elizabeth Diller, gangster gardener Ron Finley and mathematician Hannah Fry.

Diller has studied how to shape behavior in urban public space and is responsible for widely acclaimed projects such as the New York High Line and the new Hudson Docks art center The Shed.

Ron Finley spearheaded a green revolution in Los Angeles where guerrilla gardening transformed plots of land in South Central Los Angeles into gardens where neighbors grow not only vegetables but also healthier communities .

Hannah Fry teaches urban mathematics at University College London. And was able to decode the patterns of a wide range of social activity from shopping and transportation to urban crime, riots and terrorism.

The future of mobility
Among the most critical issues facing cities worldwide is the challenge of balancing an increasingly urbanized and densely populated planet with the need for all its inhabitants to move around.

This is the main objective of the Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress and the event co-organized by Fira de Barcelona and EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, a the European Union. In its second edition, Tomorrow.Mobility will encourage the design and adoption of new models of sustainable urban mobility.

Sessions on the conference agenda cover topics such as the place of public transport as a global priority in the context of rising energy prices, the use of low emission zones, electrification and micromobility for achieve carbon neutrality as quickly as possible, and the safe development of urban air. Mobility (UAM).

Among the more than 80 experts participating in the discussion are Kelly Larson, head of traffic safety and drowning prevention work at Bloomberg Philanthropies; Karen Vancluysen, Secretary General of POLIS; Marco te Brömmelstroet, Professor of the Future of Urban Mobility, University of Amsterdam; and Thomas Geier, Head of Research and Policy at European Metropolitan Transport Authorities.

PUZZLE X and advanced technologies
The second edition of PUZZLE X, an event focused on cutting-edge technologies, will seize the potential of cutting-edge technologies to build a prosperous future for humanity. To achieve this goal, the event will bring together visionaries, industry leaders, innovators and governments to discuss how these technologies can enable a better and more sustainable future.

The conferences will be structured in eight themes: Quantum World; Matterverse to Metaverse; 5G and sensitive cities; Semiconductor: The New Wave; transcend biology; Architecture tomorrow; exotic computing; and sustainable future.

Among the experts speaking at PUZZLE X, Aubrey de Grey, co-founder of the Metuselah Foundation, will discuss how technology could end aging and prolong life indefinitely. In addition, the event stage will also host presentations, including a live demonstration of Australian company Cortical Labs, which has grown synthetic brain cells and combined them with silicon chips to create mini-brains capable of learn new live routines and even play video games.

Barcelona, ​​November 3, 2022

Folc Lecha
+34 93 233 35 55
flecha@firabarcelona.com