The Port stands as an innovation engine in Smart Ports: Piers of the future

Barcelona prepares to host the Smart City Expo World Congress, which will attract representatives from more than 900 cities to the Catalan capital, transformed into the epicenter of smart cities. Once again, the event will host the Tomorrow.Blue Economy congress, which delves into the blue economy and will bring together the actors driving it globally, with an expected attendance of more than 2,200 visitors.

Organized by Fira de Barcelona with the collaboration of the Port of Barcelona, the World Ocean Council, and the City Council, through Barcelona Activa, the congress will once again embrace the Smart Ports: Piers of the Future event. Driven by the Port, it will bring together the world's most advanced port infrastructures in the field of innovation, in an event that will take place on Tuesday within the Smart City.

At the event, representatives from the most cutting-edge ports will share experiences, challenges, and solutions in areas such as digitalization, decarbonization, connectivity, and the relationship between the port and its city. Specifically, representatives from Anvers-Bruges, Busan, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Montreal, and Rotterdam will attend as members of Smart Ports, and those from Seattle and San Diego as guests.

"Collaboration and innovation are key to facing the great challenges of the maritime and port sector," defended the president of the Port of Barcelona, José Alberto Carbonell. In this process, "Barcelona has consolidated itself as a pole of attraction for organizations committed to sustainability and digitalization."

"The Smart Ports: Piers of the Future is the best example of our leadership and capacity to generate global impact," added Carbonell at the presentation of the event, where he claimed that the Barcelona port has "collaboration in its DNA." He said this alongside the director of Tomorrow.Blue Economy and Smart City, Ugo Valenti, who defined the congress as "a great exercise in public-private collaboration."

"This edition reaffirms the fair as a global benchmark event for boosting the blue economy," Valenti insisted, while the City Council's Commissioner for Economic Promotion, Nadia Quevedo, praised Barcelona's commitment to the blue economy. So much so that she announced that the municipal government is preparing a package of "even broader and more ambitious measures to take the city's blue economy to the next level."

In an event consolidated as the main international forum for the intelligent transformation of the port sector, this edition will emphasize collaboration between sectors to accelerate innovation. This line will be transversal in the four events that make up Tomorrow.Blue Economy, in addition to Smart Ports: the Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS), the Global Blue Finance Summit (BlueFIN) and the Oceanovation Hub. With more than 40 programmed sessions, the meeting will feature the participation of a hundred speakers and more than 30 startups to accelerate the transformation of the blue economy.