How can cities respond to the housing crisis, tackle the effects of climate change, or harness the potential of artificial intelligence to improve their residents’ lives? These are among the defining challenges facing urban environments today, and will equally set the agenda for the 15th Smart City Expo World Congress. From 3 to 5 November, Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue will bring together experts, companies, and institutional representatives from across the globe to share experiences and showcase innovative initiatives to forge more sustainable and resilient cities.
Under the banner Urban Solutions, Real Impact, the congress aims to shine a spotlight on technological solutions that already boast real-world applications and help address the primary challenges facing cities. Organised by Fira de Barcelona, the event expects to gather more than 27,000 attendees, delegates from a thousand cities, upwards of 1,100 exhibitors, and 600 speakers. It will do so through a programme structured around seven core thematic tracks reflecting the priorities of contemporary cities: enabling technologies; energy and environment; mobility; governance and economy; living and inclusion; infrastructure and buildings; and the blue economy.
These seven areas share a single goal: delivering solutions that improve urban functioning and residents’ quality of life. For, as highlighted by Ugo Valenti, director of the event, smart cities have ceased to be “a future promise” and today’s technological solutions “are already improving people’s lives.” For this reason, he maintains that Smart City Expo World Congress must be the forum “where cities, businesses, and experts share proven experiences, so they can be replicated wherever needed,” pointing to challenges such as extreme heat, traffic congestion, and the shortage of affordable housing.
Housing at the heart of the urban debate
Artificial intelligence, urban transformation, and major social dilemmas will anchor much of the programme for the 15th Smart City Expo World Congress, featuring 150 sessions with over 600 speakers and a wide range of international voices. Prominent among them are Anne Hidalgo, former Mayor of Paris and Global Ambassador for the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy; Andre Dickens, Mayor of Atlanta; and Nikolas Badminton, specialist in artificial intelligence and strategic foresight, who will deliver the opening keynote. The roster also features experts like Ayumi Moore Aoki, founder of Women in Tech Global, who will examine the role of diversity and inclusion in urban innovation. From the realm of public innovation, speakers will include Rochelle Haynes, Managing Director of What Works Cities, and Teresa Riesgo, Secretary General for Innovation in the Spanish Government.
The tech and corporate sphere will also hold a prominent profile on the agenda, featuring senior executives such as Paolo Guglielmini, Vice President of EMEA at NVIDIA; Kees Hertogh, Vice President of Global Industry Marketing at Microsoft; and Nam Guan Ng, General Manager and head of smart cities at Dell Technologies. Beyond conference sessions, the congress will feature an expansive exhibition floor where firms and institutions will display technologies and projects aimed at solving urban challenges. Tech heavyweights like Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Dell Technologies will be present, alongside companies and bodies specialising in fields such as environmental management, telecommunications, video surveillance, and urban planning, including FCC Enviro, Deutsche Telekom IoT, Dahua Technology, Esri, and Ubiwhere. The exhibitor line-up will be rounded out by firms such as Advantech, Arrive Group, Hanwha Vision, LoRa Alliance, Urbio, and Veolia.
Yet among the sweeping urban transformations, one issue will take centre stage: housing. The struggle to access affordable housing has emerged as one of the defining crises facing cities worldwide; for this reason, under the framework of Smart City Expo World Congress, HOWS Barcelona will take place – a global summit gathering more than 100 specialists to debate urban planning, regulation, social housing, innovative construction systems, and the retrofitting of existing housing stock. The gathering will feature figures such as Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, and Anna Minton, author and Reader in Architecture at the University of East London. Within this summit’s programme, the Housing Mayors Roundtable will also convene mayoral delegations on housing, led by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, alongside counterparts from Milan, Budapest, Athens, and Atlanta.
In parallel, and aiming to foster continued debate and knowledge-sharing among city leaders, Barcelona City Council will spearhead the Cities Programme. The initiative will be structured around two main sessions: a mayoral summit addressing the housing crisis, and a panel on cities’ strategic digital autonomy. It will also encompass the City Peers sessions – closed-door meetings where municipal leaders and international bodies such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, C40, the World Economic Forum, and Metropolis will exchange insights and best practice.
The congress will also shine a light on pioneering projects through the World Smart City Awards, which this year received 533 submissions from 68 countries. For the first time, the accolades introduce a dedicated housing category, reflecting the mounting weight of this challenge in municipal policy.
Real-world solutions to transform cities
One of the priorities this year’s gathering seeks to reinforce is showcasing projects that have already proved their mettle on the ground. This drive will be especially evident in Terra50, one of the event’s flagship innovations: an immersive dome experience gathering 50 urban climate solutions deployed across 32 countries. Showcases range from underwater desalination pods developed by Norwegian company Flocean – harnessing ocean pressure to produce fresh water with reduced energy consumption – to the zero-waste model of the Japanese town of Kamikatsu, where residents sort refuse into 14 categories and 44 subcategories.
Beyond the keynote and panel programme, Smart City Expo World Congress will stage a vast exhibition concourse where companies, public institutions, and municipalities will present technologies and initiatives spanning urban management, energy, mobility, and public services. International pavilions will facilitate ties between territories, while the Innovation Playground will focus on start-ups and emerging ventures seeking to carve out space in the market.
The gathering will be rounded out by partner events dedicated to spheres that equally shape the urban horizon: Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress, centred on sustainable mobility; Tomorrow.Blue Economy, dedicated to the blue economy; Barcelona Deep Tech Summit, specialising in scientific and technological innovation; and the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress.
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