The Digital Cluster of Catalonia has organized during the month of June and July, the "2nd program on Smart Cities for Clusters, SMEs and scale-up organizations", a five-date program led by the Cluster and with the support of all the project partners, www.smartctclusters.eu

SmartCTClustersaims to explore a model of the relationship between clusters in the field of the smart Cities paradigm and establish a collaboration network that includes the most relevant European agents in the ecosystems of mobility, energy, sustainability, and information & communication technologies. Among the planned activities within the project, this 2nd program on Smart Cities is one of the most important.

The programme managed to capture the interest of more than 115 registered participants from 17 different countries (Bulgaria, Crete, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom), with relevant profiles of the ecosystem of smart cities, such as SMEs, large companies, town halls, clusters, professional associations, consultancies, universities, non-profit organizations, public administration, start-ups, and technology consultancies.

The cluster is very pleased to have organized this program, where we gathered over a month, a total of 5 experts and international  speakers, 4 representatives of Smart Cities from the EU and the world, 16  stakeholders or relevant market agents, and 16 SMEs that launch their innovative solutions around the pillars of energy, ICT, Mobility and public administration. The conference allowed to achieve multiple objectives. The first one, to share throughout these weekly sessions, the experience, and knowledge of a large number of actors from different smart cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Torino, Florence, Sofia, Leipzig, Rome, Singapore, or Amsterdam; as well as their ecosystems, which are strongly linked to the evolution and growth of Smart Cities. Secondly, to generate a debate environment in which speakers and participants discussed the present and future of Smart Cities, the challenges and opportunities that the continuous evolution of cities are offering us, as well as the wide range of perspectives that must be evaluated in order to consider all the agents involved in the development of Smart Cities. Third,  the conference allowed to establish a solid collaboration base so that both speakers and participants can establish new links for future actions, such as the 15 innovative SMEs that presented their solutions in front of the representatives of smart cities and the 16 stakeholders convened throughout the program; or the establishment of conversations for some relevant participants could get involved in the future Joint Strategy on Smart Cities to be signed between the consortium and new members, which will define a roadmap for implementing actions during the next 5 years. And fourth and last, the program allowed to launch a survey aimed at the ICT ecosystem related to SmartCities, with the aim of starting to map the knowledge, competencies, and solutions from the smart cities ecosystems to incorporate them into the future strategy and roadmap.

The cluster thanks all the speakers and especially the participants, with whom they are pleased to share the material generated during the program through the project website, where it is possible to find more than 5 sessions and  20 hours of recordings,  21 presentations by all the participating speakers and experts and finally the contact details of the innovative SMEs that make their"pitch" solutions.

In summary, a program that has allowed us to clearly transmit a great amount of knowledge and approaches "not always easy" to explain or understand; as well as a series of examples of innovative solutions to contribute to the challenges we face as citizens in our living environments (Cities, Regions, Countries, Continents, and World).

More information and access to the programme's material are available on this link.