Great start to Smart City Expo 2017. A recap of Tuesday 14th
What a wonderful first day at Smart City Expo World Congress 2017. The hallways were buzzing with activity, stands and pavilions busy networking and speakers giving presentations virtually around every corner.
The congress was non stop with inspiring dialogues and talks.
We learnt about how blockchain is being used in governance by Smart Dubai with Aisha Bin Bishr, and how they want to make every citizen as feel happy.
Joan Clos, UN-Habitat Executive Director, on how urbanization is of strategic relevance, because it generates economic development, eliminates risk of unrest and violence, and its the only way to solve the climate change challenge.
Jason Roberts from The Better Block inspired us to take the lead and change our neighborhoods with some easy tactical urbanism tips: just get people involved and find ways you can change things rapidly. If people like the prototypes they can turn them into permanent changes later.
We need mass transit and to offer a variety of travel services, said Mohamed Mezghani, UITP Secretary General Elect. at the Strategic Alliances panel. We need to combine mass transit with on-demand mobility to answer to the variety of individual needs. So we need integration of urban planning with new mobility actors. Aliances between the old and the new actors.
We also learnt about Circular Cities, how the only way they can become a reality is through grassroots mobilization with city authorities as facilitators. There is still much room for economic development rising from plastic reuse.
Dirk Ahlborn, Hyperloop CEO presented this the futuristic transportation at the Railway Hub. At Smart Mobility we also enjoyed the first competition of its kind of miniature autonomous cars at the CARNET Seat Autonomous Driving Challenge circuit.
Mitchell Kosny closed a panel which can probably sum up what we repeatedly heard at the congress. "Cities are messy, as Jane Jacobs once said. Planners want a plan. But I say, It's not about a plan, it's about plan-ning. Each problem is unique but collaboration is common thing. Start by participating and collaborating to make change possible.
All in all so much to talk about and reflect upon. There is still much more to go during the next two days so stay tuned for more.