Our Smart City Manager live from the Smart City World Congress in Barcelona (17-18 November 2020)

The Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona (SCEWC) is the flagship event that brings several thousand Smart City stakeholders to the Catalan capital every year. It had to reinvent itself this year in a fully digital format, and the result was a great success.

The first part was a full-day live television broadcast on the event's website and social media on 17 November, and the second part was a programme of online workshops and side events on 18 November.

The 2020 theme focused on the future of cities after the COVID-19 pandemic, with a programme structured around six key areas: adapting urban mobility to safe and sustainable travel; technologies to address global urban challenges; redesigning cities and urban living for all; ensuring an inclusive economic recovery; resilient infrastructures and urban environments to build back better; and the future of retail in a digital era.This edition's virtual forum closed with more than 242 speakers from the five continents, 86 sessions and side events and welcoming 20 489 virtual attendees.
 

Among the invited experts was Céline Vanderborght, Smart City Manager for the Brussels-Capital Region, with Marta Subirà, Secretary for Environment and Sustainable Development of the Government of Catalonia, for a discussion on how we will rebuild our lives, economies and cities after lockdown. And how, thanks to technology, this crisis represents an opportunity to accelerate our transition to greater sustainability and resilience.

"The Brussels Region, like other European capitals, has rediscovered its fragility, but also the great solidarity and the many resources of its inhabitants. As in the past, this health crisis will profoundly change our cities in the long term: remote working and its impact on urban functions, the growth of cycling, the need for nearby green spaces and above all the importance of working on digital inclusion."