The Smart City Expo World Congress, renowned as the pinnacle event for urban innovation, last week drew more than 25,000 attendees from across the globe. Among the key players in this event was Living-in.EU.

Living-in.EU was prominently featured in four pivotal sessions during the congress, underscoring its commitment to driving innovation and collaboration:

November 7th - Living-in.EU: opportunities for the digital transformation of the European cities

On November 7th, at Barcelona Provincial Council stand, Living-in.EU took the spotlight. Attendees had the opportunity to delve into the Living-in.EU movement and its various working groups. The discussion highlighted LORDIMAS, shedding light on its potential and specifically focusing on the case of  the city of Ghent. Representatives from Manresa and Sant Boi de Llobregat shared their experiences as signatories of the declaration, adding real-world depth to the conversation.

November 7th - Interactive Discussion on Living-in.EU Movement

At the Red Española de Ciudades Inteligentes booth (Spanish Smart Cities Network), Living-in.EU engaged in a discussion on the benefits of being part of a network of smart cities and bringing together regional, national and EU networks to consolidate efforts. Gabriela Ruseva (Project Coordinator at Eurocities), Daniel Vega Diaz (General Secretary at RECI), and Carmen Lavado (Head of Digital Services at Sant Boi de Llobregat City Council) discussed with the participants the benefits of joining the movement, like the possibility to take part in the working groups on legal, education and capacity building, technical, financial and monitoring and measuring. This fostered a dynamic exchange of ideas and experiences among participants.

November 7th – Discover LORDIMAS: your digital maturity assessment

Jordi Ortuño Ribé (Barcelona City Council and chair of the Monitoring & Measuring working group) and Anke Schuster (Policy Officer at the Committee of the Regions) presented LORDIMAS in a dynamic session at Barcelona City Council booth. Participants were able to see a live demonstration of the tool and discover how LORDIMAS can help cities and regions in their digital transformation journey. LORDIMAS helps cities and regions identify their strengths and share them with other cities and communities in Europe to inspire them. This makes LORDIMAS not only a tool for cities and regions, but by cities and regions.

November 8th Multi-level Governance for Smart Cities and Communities

On November 8th, Living-in.EU spearheaded the session "Multi-level governance for smart cities and communities." Seppo Määttä (Mayor of the City of Oulu) and Lluïsa Moret i Sabidó (Mayor of the City of Sant Boi de Llobregat) presented Living-in.EU new mission statement. The four main priorities are: 1) Advancing the twin and digital transformation at local level; 2) Fostering technological innovation (city as a platform); 3) Better-informed policies through data; 4) People-centred digital transformation and digital rights.

Moderated by Mar Jiménez (Senior Project Coordinator at Eurocities),this session revolved around the immense potential of data in policy making at local and regional levels. Delving deeper, the discourse explored strategies for cross-border collaboration and emphasized the pivotal role of local digital twins (LDTs) in this landscape.

Highlighting the European Commission's Digital Decade policy programme, Martin Bailey, Head of Unit at DG CNECT, showcased the forthcoming European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC). Notably, among the announced EDICs, emphasis was placed on Networked Local Digital Twins Towards CitiVerse, reflecting the evolving focus on LDTs.

The EDIC set the scene for the discussion between the distinguished panelists, Gatis Ozols Latvian Deputy-State Secretary for digitalisation, Constance Nebbula, Vice-President of the Region Pays de la Loire, and Fabian Maingain, Alderman of Economic Affairs, Employment, Smart City & Administrative of the City of Brussels. 

Constance Nebbula highlighted that to build efficient digital twins, it is necessary to “converge a diversity of data coming from different sources”. This is why Pays de la Loire Region created a digital portal dedicated to geographic information (geopal.org). Fabian Maingain highlighted the benefits of the collaboration among cities to implement digital solutions: “we can make standard procurement procedures for digital solutions and open these procurements to other cities. This could be a concrete way of helping other cities”. Gatis Ozols remarked the important role of climate-neutral cities in leading the implementation of smart solutions. 

Signatories from the city of Turin (represented by Chiara Foglietta, Digital Transformation Advisor), city of Matosinhos (represented by Carlos Mouta Vice-Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos), city of Sant Boi de Llobregat and city of Oulu signed the declaration, confirming their commitment to the European way of digital transformation of cities and regions. 

The movement also had the pleasure of welcoming Localret, the network of catalonia’s local authorities working on digital transformation, represented by its president Pilar Díaz, as new signatory of the Join, Boost, Sustain declaration.

As Living-in.EU looks ahead, the focus remains on continued collaboration, leveraging collective efforts towards the European way of Digital Transformation and creating the conditions for up-scaling successful digital solutions across cities, regions and countries.

In the words of Martin Bailey, "We are stronger together: by working together we can bring prosperity. To make the most of the revolution of data we need to share our resources and experiences. It is through a collaborative strategy on how we are going to use, deploy and develop further infrastructure that we can really push forward not just the idea but the physical reality of it."

Stay tuned for further updates and collaborations as Living-in.EU drives the European pathway to Digital Transformation.

If you want to join the movement as a supporter or signatory, you can register here.