Among large stands from countries and cities around the world, where suits and handshakes predominate, this year's Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) has reserved an exclusive space for emerging companies. The smart cities fair, organized by Fira de Barcelona, has filled 1,000 square meters with small counters where startups explain their innovations, hand out cards and, if they are lucky, close deals. It is not only a matter of concentration in shared exhibitors, but there is also something of style, with ties and briefcases being replaced by t-shirts and sweatshirts sealed with the logos of still incipient brands. On a different carpet, more than 80 startups participate in this new space throughout the three days of the fair, from Tuesday to Thursday at the Gran Via exhibition center.
The Smart City Expo has been focusing for years on specific areas of future cities, especially those that now pollute the most. These are mobility, construction and the blue economy, which have parallel programs within the same fair and have also become the protagonists of the startups' proposals. Unlike other congresses, the emerging companies that have set up these days in pavilion 3 of the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat exhibition center do not beat around the bush and propose solutions, most of the time, simple and feasible. They move away from a too common trend in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of simply digitizing something that is not yet digital, and are quite united in seeking new ways to face the climate emergency.
What they say seems easy, even obvious, but the trick is to have thought of it first. An example is what the Dutch company The Great Bubble Barrier proposes. It is just that, a barrier of bubbles in rivers and canals of cities to prevent pollution from reaching the open sea, according to Annemiek Zeelen. It may sound like a miracle, but no, the company manages to stop waste such as cigarettes, candy wrappers, cups, bottles, and bags, diverting their trajectory to an area set up to collect them and do what should have been done from the beginning, throw them in the trash. What is most abundant is styrofoam. All this, without affecting fish migrations or boat circulation. They already operate in cities in the Netherlands such as Amsterdam, Harlingen, Katwijk, Wervershoof, where they have collected balls, chairs, helmets, surfboards, and even a Christmas tree, with the decorations still on. They are also in Portugal, in Porto.
If everyone knows about bubbles, photocatalysis, understood as artificial photosynthesis, may sound more technical but it is nothing new either. The Italian company Wiwell focuses on this process to clean the air of pollution and viruses, developing this aspect with COVID, but also to eliminate bad odors. A thin plastic film does all this when it comes into contact with light, whether natural or artificial, as Coca Cola is already seeing in the posters it hangs around cities and the buses that circulate in the firm's hometown. But it is also being placed on furniture, houses, offices, and cars, as well as in pet houses, here thinking more about bad odors.
Reusing things has also been known for a long time, but it is also true that there is still much to recycle. That's what they thought at Sustein when they visited a waste plant and saw how masks, gowns, and medicine bottles from hospitals were burned after being sterilized. So they decided to recover them to use them as acoustic and thermal insulation for houses or buildings, according to Lucía Carrasco. Construction companies, one of the most polluting industries, buy it from them. It is one of the Barcelona-based companies participating in the innovation zone of the Smart City Expo. Immersed in a funding round, it wants to raise resources to grow the team and internalize production.
If no one doubts that recycling is good, even less so that walking is too. Leaning on that popular knowledge and looking to reduce transport emissions, the Swedish Walking Talking proposes an app to hold working meetings while walking. As Linnea Arvidsson reminds us, the company had been dedicated to planning many team buildings with weekend meetings, forest excursions or games, but they saw that it didn't quite catch on and that, furthermore, it involved traveling, which ended up generating more pollution. With all this experience, they are now betting on this new type of face-to-face meetings, taking advantage of the opportunity to exercise a little and not stay so cooped up. In the app, notes can be taken of what is said so as not to forget anything.
Present throughout the exhibition hall
This has been the first test for the new Innovation Area, closely accompanied by the Barcelona Tech Summit, a space organized by Barcelona Activa with about forty more startups. Here the tenants have been scientific and technological spin-offs such as Aortix, Bamboo Energy, Colorsensing, Ephion Health, Jolt or Keybotic. The Smart City Expo thus follows the path of other major trade shows such as the Mobile World Congress (MWC), where what started as a pilot, with startups sneaking into the big mobile industry fair at 4 Years From Now (4YFN), has grown so much that it has ended up completely differentiated from its matrix. Likewise, the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), the main audiovisual industry fair, also plans to have its own space for emerging companies in the 2025 edition.
The Smart City Expo follows the path of other major trade shows such as the MWC or the ISEAll this without forgetting that, in the rest of the Smart City Expo, other emerging companies fit into the stands of countries and cities, expanding their reach and representing further proof that the entrepreneurial ecosystem has come to stay. There it isNeuralporton the Japan stand. It accompanies the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), an organization similar to ICEX or Acció, to focus on the entire country and show that there is life beyond immense Tokyo, with entrepreneurial activity based in traditional Kyoto or emerging Osaka. Neuralport is located near the second city, in Kobe, with a virtual reality glasses solution to measure stress levels that wants to reach hospitals.
With 1,100 exhibitors and 850 cities represented, the fair also hosts large multinationals such as Microsoft and local companies such as Sorigué and Moventis. Some, like Bioo, based in Viladecans, look very closely at startups. With one of the largest stands, the company now has projects in Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, and the United States, and started like them, presenting itself at events such as the Smart City Expo or the MWC to make itself known and attract clients. For years, it has been one of the firms that occupies the most space in these halls with biological switches that are plants, always capturing the interest of attendees who still find it hard to believe that by pressing a jade tree, the light can be turned on.