Session “Innovative Platforms for Multi-Stakeholders Processes to Foster Sustainable Cities”

“Education before technology” This is the interesting reflection left to us by the last speaker, Edna Pasher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Adelphi University of New York. Under this premise, the project has been developed the MALAL project in the Israeli city of Haifa, consisting of establishing an educational program from childhood to adulthood for all schoolchildren in the city. Divided into 150 communities, they will learn to work on collaborative platforms so that in the future, the problem that is currently latent does not exist: Platforms are developed for citizens, but citizens, for various reasons, do not use them or do not do so properly.

Previously, Olga Kordas, Director of the Energy Platform at KTH Royal Institute of Stockholm, and David Lazarevic, a researcher at the same institute, explained the project carried out in Sweden, in which, according to them, the necessary conditions exist for smart city projects to come to fruition: a population that is growing rapidly, a population that lives in cities by 95%, a great awareness of respect for the environment plus first-class infrastructures. In their speech, they insisted that the key was the full involvement and collaboration of city councils with the rest of the government institutions and private companies so that everything flows in the direction of the citizens’ interests.

The case of Fireware was explained by Juanjo Hierro, Head of Technology as well as Coordinator and Head of Fireware Architectures. This platform is already operating successfully in some 60 European cities. The key to this prolific expansion lies in a technological standardization that allows local cases to be treated globally, such as those of each of the municipalities that already work with Fireware: Smart parking, traffic management, environmental, and waste systems are centralized through this platform.

The session was completed with the interventions of Raúl González Prats, Strategic Director of the CELLNEX Smartcities platform, who delved into the idea that innovation, despite being a highly valuable aspect, makes it difficult for developers to implement the platforms.

Also speaking were Víctor Mulas, Program Officer of Innovation Labs at the World Bank, and Geoff Snelson, Director of Strategies at the Milton Keynes Council.