When the Port of Barcelona arrived at the Smart City Expo World Congress in 2019 with the Smart Ports event, there were no other ports present at the fair, according to the director of Innovation of the port authority, Emma Cobos. Four years later, the congress on smart cities is reinforced with a new vertical, Tomorrow.Oceans, focused on the blue economy. "Port cities cannot be smart cities if they do not have a smart port," defends the president of the Port de Barcelona, Damià Calvet. In addition, Smart Ports itself has been consolidating with each edition, adding new port enclaves to the event. Specifically, Barcelona is accompanied by partners such as those from Antwerp, Hamburg, Montreal, Los Angeles, and Busan, a list to which Göteborg will be added starting this year.
Smart Ports will return this year to in-person attendance in its fourth edition, after the pandemic marked the celebration of the last two editions. Even so, the digital option will not be abandoned, which added 6,000 spectators and 20,000 views in 2021, and will be combined with the option of attending the round tables that will be held at the stand it will have at Fira Gran Via. "We want speakers to be able to interact with the public and see possible solutions at the fair that they can take back," defends Cobos. In this sense, the director of Innovation of the Port de Barcelona has given the example of the startup Allread, which began its development with pilots in the Catalan infrastructure and which has just closed a round of 2.5 million euros. According to Fira de Barcelona, this new edition of the Smart City Expo, which will be held from November 15 to 17, will be the definitive recovery, reaching pre-pandemic figures, with more than 20,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors.
With 14 debate tables, eight of which will be held in person at the L'Hospitalet fairgrounds, the topics that will be discussed at Smart Ports throughout the three days will range from the most current, such as the disruptions that are occurring in supply chains, to more fundamental ones, such as the decarbonization process that ports are promoting to reduce their environmental impact. On this last aspect, the search for new fuels that the industry is doing will be addressed, with options such as biomethane, a renewable gas for which the Port de Barcelona is studying building a plant to produce it.
The America's Cup will also be present at Smart Ports, with the participation of the CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand and America's Cup Events, Grant Dalton. The arrival of this sporting event in 2024 is called to be an opportunity for the city, now that 30 years have passed since the Olympic Games.
Following in the footsteps of Allread, startups will also have a space in the fourth edition of Smart Ports. It will be approached from the point of view of investors, with Schenker Ventures, Indico Capital Partners and Tech Tour, as well as the companies themselves, with YLoad Global, Awake.AI and the Barcelona-based Allread. In addition, the company GuideMeCity 2.0 will present a pilot to control cruise passenger flows in Barcelona.