Guangzhou unveils shortlist for awards
14 October 2014
by Richard Forster
The city of Guangzhou in southern China has revealed the 15 cities shortlisted for the Second Guangzhou Awards for Urban Innovation, for which there will be a special ceremony in November.
The 15 cities include one Chinese city, Hangzhou, which has the world’s largest bike-hire scheme serving 280,000 users daily. The other cities nominated from the Asia-Pacific region are Christchurch, Jakarta, Gwanju and Melbourne. Abu Dhabi has been shortlisted from the Middle East and Dakar is Africa’s sole representative.
“The goal of the Guangzhou Awards is to highlight exemplary models of innovative policies and practices, to motivate cities and local authorities to further promote innovation, and to improve city governance,” said Nicholas You, who moderated the meeting of the members of the technical committee.
From Europe, four cities were shortlisted: UK city Bristol is nominated for its smart city programme; Germany’s port city Hamburg, for its zero-carbon neighbourhood of Wilhelmsburg; Linköping, in Sweden, which aims to be carbon neutral by 2015, and Eskisehir in Turkey, which is shortlisted for its city museum.
From the Americas, US city Boston, Antioquia Province in Colombia, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires were selected by the committee. Rio was recognised for its much trumpeted Operations Centre set up by IBM and Buenos Aires for its citizen roundtables to encourage and promote feedback from city residents.
“Rio de Janeiro is truly honoured to be recognised for our Operations Centre once again,” said Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro. “We are proud that our smart city initiatives and Olympic legacy projects are inspiring other cities in the world in terms of resilience and quick reaction to urban and climate-related emergencies.”
Commenting on Buenos Aires’ nomination, Mayor Mauricio Macri told Cities Today: “We are delighted that our efforts to bring innovation and creativity in how we develop and implement policies for our citizens have been recognised.”
In total, there were 209 initiatives proposed by 159 cities across 55 countries. The awards will take place on 28 November preceded by a conference on urban innovation. There will be a special presentation to one of the 15 cities which wins an online poll of citizens as well as awards for the winning cities chosen by the media and by delegates attending the conference on urban innovation. To vote, please log on here.
