16.11.2016 - 15:29
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Actualització: 16.11.2016 - 16:29
Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the premier global event on smart cities, opens its doors today at the Fira Barcelona venue on Gran Via. The trade show will host more than 600 cities, 412 speakers, and 576 exhibitors (a 30% increase over last year), representing leading companies in the ‘smart’ urban solutions industry. The conferences and exhibitions will take place in Hall 2 on the fairgrounds. More than 14,000 visitors from over a hundred countries are expected.
Organized by Fira de Barcelona, the event will focus on citizens and on the various projects that are being implemented around the world to empower them and make metropolitan areas more humane. To this end, the show’s program, and the content of the speakers’ presentations, will be divided into seven categories: governance, economy, society, sustainability, mobility, data and technology, and security. The initiatives that will be presented focus on making citizens’ daily lives more sustainable, affordable, and convenient.
Of the 600 cities that are taking part in SCEWC, fifty of them will have their own pavilions. New York, Berlin, Casablanca, Graz, Karlsruhe, London, Luxembourg, Quebec, Seoul, Vienna, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Medellin, and Barcelona are just a few of the cities that will unveil their innovations in the implementation of smart solutions to manage the growth of metropolitan areas.
Among the participating companies are Bosch, Cisco, Microsoft, Huawei, Celnex, Amazon, Audi, Airbnb, Google, IBM, and Siemens.
Microsoft, together with ONCE (the Spanish association for the blind and visually impaired), will introduce a new system of beacons at street level to help people with vision impairment better navigate the streets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J3AVz-W7EU
Celnex, meanwhile, will introduce new connectivity solutions for cities, the result of integrating Small Cells and DAS (Distributed Antenna System) into street furniture. This will allow mobile broadband access in areas with spotty coverage, such as tunnels or the inside of buildings, or in high density areas that require greater connectivity. Celnex will also showcase solutions for managing public lighting, urban irrigation systems, and Big Data on tourists, as well as sensor-enabled devices, such as water meters and waste containers.
Among the more than 300 speakers on the program are Susan Etlinger (board member of The Big Boulder Initiative, dedicated to promoting the ethical use of social data), David Bollier (founder of the Commons Strategies Group), and Parag Khanna (a leading international geopolitical analyst).
