Kyoto will host the first ever Asian edition of Smart City Expo World Congress next year
Smart City Expo World Congress chooses Rio de Janeiro as the best smart city of 2013
The third Smart City Expo World Congress, organised by Fira de Barcelona, closed its doors this afternoon after selecting Rio de Janeiro as winner of the World Smart City Awards in the City category. In the categories of Project and Initiative, the awards went to the Japanese Funabashi Mori-no-City Futuristic Hometown and Fab Lab Barcelona’s Smart Citizen – Crowdsensing Open Community. The 2013 edition of the event has been the most international with around 400 cities and 29 international delegations.
The decision taken by Rio de Janeiro’s municipal government to undertake a change in model and a radical transformation of the city earned it one of the World Smart Cities Awards that were presented last night. The panel of judges valued the deployment of a long-term project to turn the city into a smartbenchmark in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Chefe da Casa Civil of Rio de Janeiro, Pedro Paulo, present at the Barcelona event stated at midday “It is a huge honor for us to win the World Smart City Award 2013, especially here in Barcelona, a city that sets an example in this area. Rio is an amazing city, but full of daily challenges. It is really significative that we have won competing against developed cities such as Berlin and Copenhagen. This means that Latin American cities have good experiences to share with the world“,
The list of initiatives already underway includes Rio’s Operations Centre (COR)from where the local government permanently monitors what is happening in the city; the 1746 Central, an online and phone service; and other projects such as the urban regeneration of the Porto Maravilha area and the MaréAnas initiative to develop an integrated transport system to improve mobility around the favelas (slums) in the Maré district.
In the Project category, the award went to Mitsubishi’s Funabashi Mori-no-City Futuristic Hometown, a large-scale urban development project in Chiba (Tokyo Greater Area), incorporating schemes for innovative environmental technology and community development to promote an energy-conserving mindset among residents. Barcelona’s Fab Lab won the award in the Initiative category for Smart Citizen – Crowdsensing Open Community, a platform for citizens to share real time data captured by any device or sensor.
Kyoto, venue of the Asian edition of Smart City Expo
This afternoon, the Japanese prefecture of Kyoto signed an agreement with Fira de Barcelona to hold the Asian edition of the event. The new event will be held in the Nippon city at the end of next march and will be co-organised by Fira de Barcelona and the Japanese regional government. The aim of the agreement is to organise the benchmark event on the Asian continent, which will benefit from the experience and know-how of Fira and the city of Barcelona in the field of smart initiatives.
The third Smart City Expo World Congress closed after holding its best edition yet, which has been validated by over 300 participating cities and the 9,000 recorded visitors, 3,200 of them congress attendees. The fourth smart city summit will be held next year, after having coincided in 2013 with EVS27 and BcnRail the International Railway Industry Show
Barcelona, November 21st 2013