{"id":1468,"date":"2016-02-18T10:30:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T10:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/industry\/blog\/uncategorized\/smart-city-expo-top-5-topics-of-conversation\/"},"modified":"2023-05-31T16:32:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T23:32:09","slug":"smart-city-expo-top-5-topics-of-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/industry\/blog\/government\/2016\/02\/18\/smart-city-expo-top-5-topics-of-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart City Expo: Top 5 topics of conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

As thousands of delegates gather for Smart City Expo Puebla 2016<\/a>, I took a look back at the topics of the conversations that we and our Microsoft CityNext solution partners had during Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) in Barcelona last November. We have summarized the top 5 in a great story-telling app called\u00a0Sway. While the location for the event has moved\u00a0nearly 6,000 miles, many of the challenges cities face remain the same across the globe and population growth is the common driver.<\/p>\n

With a projected urbanization growth rate of 86 percent<\/a> by 2050, Latin America\u2019s city governments, like many others around the world, will face the issues of citizen health and well-being, public safety, education, transportation, and sustainability. These challenges of growth will, I\u2019m sure, feature strongly in the keynote speeches at this week\u2019s Puebla event.<\/p>\n

Smart City Expo Puebla 2016 will hopefully build on the valuable discussions, ideas, and best-practices that took place in Barcelona. For example, MIT Senseable Lab<\/a> is exploring the interfaces and interactions between urban design and technology to improve urban living at SCE in Puebla. This echoes that of Fundaci\u00f3n Metr\u00f3poli<\/a>, a Microsoft CityNext partner recognized by SCEWC as part of its 2015 Innovative Idea Award. The award acknowledges the urban \u201cDiamond<\/a>\u201d concept used in defining the urban and territorial dimensions of issues affecting 11 major cities in the greater metro area of Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, which has a population of more than 14 million.<\/p>\n

Following SCEWC in Barcelona, we produced a Sway as an\u00a0illustrated summary<\/a>\u00a0consolidating the key 5 topics from the conversations with leaders and solution experts during the event:<\/p>\n