Field notes from the Barcelona Smart Cities Expo World Congress 2016

Barcelona, Spain. Where the world meets to engage in the smart cities movement. And this movement, which is very much a global one, is accelerating. Not only is the ecosystem of stakeholders evolving, but the pace at which it is evolving is staggering.

The Smart Cities Expo World Congress wrapped-up just over a week ago, and the clock now restarts on another year of disruption, innovation, and problem solving, until we all meet again – same time, same place, next year. So what did we see at #SCEWC16?

Well, the statistics are pretty impressive. There were more than 16,500 people from over 600 countries who came to check out almost 600 exhibitors and 420 speakers. Not a bad effort I think.

The diversity of exhibitors and speakers was significant – from entrepreneurial start ups from Israel, to national policy makers from Estonia. From housing and social equity champions from Namibia, to health and mobility innovators from China. And yes, the obligatory robot, drone, virtual reality headset, and driverless bus made an appearance.

But we also saw internet enabled street furniture, social media data mining platforms, and immersive virtual school classrooms. I spoke to a cultural anthropologist, interviewed a 25 year old mobility start-up CEO, and had coffee with a Russian smart homes analyst.

It is clear that people are now at the centre of this movement. But of course they always were, but often perceived as not. And the theme for this year’s Expo - ‘Cities for Citizens’ – was placed at the centre of the content for the event. And in parallel to SCEWC was European Utility Week, and the Circular Economy Conference. Each event representing three themes with nested objectives – healthier environments, and greater human prosperity.

The expo floor was really where the action was at. With almost 600 exhibitors sharing their vision, their ideas, and their solutions. For many, it was their life's work in making the world a better place. Global corporate giants who have been around for more than 100 years, to one person start-ups no more than three months old. From the high tech to the human centric.

Let me share with you my top four observations:

1.    Citizen at the Centre

This was the big one. Community engagement platforms, everywhere. Not just a few – I counted at least 15. Many had common components, but some with unique features, such as online participatory budgeting polling, integrated visual storytelling, and user-generated data sets. Some had additional features like crowdfunding. I think this reflects the understanding that the smart city not only engages the community, but there is sustained active participation by the community on an ongoing basis beyond one-off project engagement processes.

2.    Integrated City Performance is Coming

Dashboards are coming. And I mean real-time, data driven performance platforms that provide a real sense of what's going on in a city. But this only works where the right sensors are collecting the right data. This also requires the right metrics to help inform the data gathering strategy. And this was a clear message from the congress sessions – “its not about big data, but rather the right data.” The expo contained the mother-of-all dashboards, revealed by the Chinese telco giant Huawei. They claim it’s the world’s first visualised and converged command intelligent operations centre, and it tracks the performance of the nations capital, Beijing (see image below). I am excited about the opportunities in this space over the coming year or two.

3.    Smart as a City Investment Strategy

The country pavilions were out in force at the expo. More than 30 countries and cities were on show, all demonstrating their local talent, but also the achievements they celebrate to show-off to potential investors, organisations, and visitors. From Angora to New York City, the City of Lusail in Qatar, to the Mayor of London. Dubai, India, and Switzerland. There was Malaysia, but that's as far as we got to Australia. The lucky country was a no-show, but possibly at a future date we might see the smart cities market in the Australia New Zealand mature enough to want to show off to the world, and attract opportunity.

4.    Converging Cities – Sharing Cities, Resilient Cities, and Smart Cities

When you look deeper into the principles of the smart city, you see many characteristics of the sharing economy, and resiliency. Mobility is one such example, whereby technology, data, and intelligent design are combined with the principle of the sharing economy, to bring new applications to the market. These apps build off the idea of mobility as a service, or subscription. Numerous ride sharing apps for example are providing greater accessibility for traditionally underserved communities, allowing them to build greater resilience. I think there is much more to come around the convergence of these three movements. Watch this space.

There is much to contemplate regarding the smart cities marketplace for the Australia New Zealand region, in the context of this global snapshot. What from the expo is now, new, or next for our region? Which solutions best mach our urban challenges, that we are not embracing? Are there industries, sectors, or behaviours ripe for disruption?

One things for sure, that in 12 months time, when the world gathers back in Barcelona to do it all over again, much will have changed in terms of the solutions and innovations, yet the overall goal will be the same – to make our cities for sustainable.