Held in Barcelona since 2011, Smart City Expo World Congress is the international leading event for cities. Their mission is to empower cities and collectivize urban innovation across the globe. Through promoting social innovation and identifying collaboration opportunities, the event is dedicated to creating a better future for cities and their citizens. 

Living-in.EU will be present at the SCEWC 2023 with the following sessions:

"Living-in.EU: opportunities for the digital transformation of the European cities" at Barcelona Provincial Council booth on 7 November 2023 at 13:30 – 14:30h and at Red Española de Ciudades Inteligentes booth (Spanish Smart Cities Network) on 7 November 2023 at 16:00 – 17:00h

"Discover LORDIMAS: your digital maturity assessment"  on 7 November at 16:00 h at Barcelona stand (151, Hall 2),  with Jordi Ortuño Ribé (Barcelona City Council) and Anke Schuster (CoR).

"Multi-level governance for smart cities and communities" on 8 November 2023 at 15:30-16:15h (link)

Living-in.EU facilitates a dialogue on digital transformation of smart cities, communities, and regions. One of the focus topics is how to make best use of data to improve policymaking at local and regional level and take better-informed decisions, with the ultimate goal to reduce our environmental impact and foster sustainability.

A collaboration among all levels of governance is crucial to ensure data sharing and unlock the full potential of data. Local digital twins (LDTs) are one of the instruments to achieve this goal. Local digital twins are a virtual representation of a city's physical assets, using data, data analytics and machine learning to simulate scenarios and test measures before implementing them in the “real world”.

As part of the Digital Decade policy programme, the European Commission is planning to support a number of Multi Country Projects on different topics, through a new instrument called European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC). One of the announced EDICs is on Networked Local Digital Twins Towards CitiVerse.

Given the novelty of LDTs, Living-in.EU would like to take the SCEWC as an occasion to raise awareness and discuss progress, both at European level, as well as in individual cities and communities, and actions on LDTs. The session will address questions such as ‘What is the prospective impact of LDTs on improving evidence-based urban policymaking and fostering participation and trust among citizens? What are the challenges of adopting and deploying such technologies? What solutions can be put forward by champion cities in this field? And how an instrument such as the EDIC can help to create an ecosystem of digital twins that are accessible to cities and regions of all sizes across the EU’.

The event will also be the opportunity to officially launch the Living-in.EU mission statement and actions on sustainable digital transformation by the co-chairs of the Living-in.EU Mayors Digital Assembly.

Here you can find the agenda:

15:30 – 15:40 Launch of the Living-in.EU mission statement

• Mayor or Oulu
• Mayor of Sant Boi de Llobregat

15:40 – 16:05 Political debate “Local digital twins for better urban policies” 

Moderator: André Sobczak, Secretary General, Eurocities

Panelists:

• Fabian Maingain Alderman of Economic Affairs, Employment, Smart City & Administrative
  Simplification, Brussels
• Almudena Ruiz Sánchez, Advisor of the technical cabinet of the General Secretariat, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Spain

16:05 – 16:10 Conclusions by European Commission DG CNECT 

16:10 – 16:15 Signature of the Join, Boost, Sustain declaration