Curitiba wins top award at Smart City Expo 2023

The Brazilian city of Curitiba won the Smart City award at this year’s Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. The awards acknowledge leading urban innovation projects from around the world.

The jury said Curitiba was selected for its approach to urban planning, socioeconomic growth and environmental sustainability.

“The approach has a central focus on enhancing the quality of life for citizens,” they said.

The mobility award went to the Konya Metropolitan Municipality for its project in Meram, Turkey to restore old streetcars and make them available exclusively to cyclists, with the aim of increasing cycling awareness in the city and developing a new transportation model.

In the Safety and Resilience category, the winner was Gangnam‑gu, Korea for its policy of supporting marginalised social groups. The Enabling Technologies award went to Tampere, Finland for its “urban-social digital twin” that harnesses information from the city’s Data and Insights platform to support decision-making.

Leadership

In the Energy and Environment category, the award went to Bordeaux, France for the design of tools to obtain reliable indicators on both temperatures and how residents experience urban heat. The winner of the Governance and Economy category was the US Mayor Roundtable initiative from the United States.

Saudi Aramco’s Dhahram Smart City platform was selected as the best initiative in the Infrastructure and Building Category. The platform integrates IoT and AI for the management of facilities and services. The city of Breda, Netherlands won the Living and Inclusion award for Bereikbaar Breda Applicatie, an application to make it easier for people with disabilities to go into the city and attend events through the provision of accessible information.

The Innovation category had two winners: the SPIRE initiative for its work to renature polluted urban soil in Baia Mare, Romania, and ECO-HEROES for its contributions to vocational training in the field of ecotourism in Marrakesh, Morocco.

This year’s edition also included a special Leadership award. The 2023 recipients were Anna Lisa Boni, Deputy Mayor of Bologna and Secretary General of Eurocities from 2014 to 2021, and Claudio Orrego, Governor of the Santiago de Chile Metropolitan Region.

The award jury comprised representatives from the Barcelona City Council, UN-Habitat, the World Bank, the EC Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities, the World Economic Forum, SEGITTUR, and Smart City Expo World Congress.

The Smart City Expo World Congress is organised by Fira de Barcelona and was held in conjunction with Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress, Tomorrow.Building and Tomorrow.Blue Economy. The organisers said that over three days, the events attracted over 25,300 attendees from 140 countries at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue.