Nordic Edge Expo – The leading smart city event in the Nordics

Nordic Edge Expo is a unique meeting place for decision-makers, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors with smart city ambitions. Here, the public sector meets private businesses and organisations to share experiences, discuss challenges and present solutions.

• We can no longer talk about the future. It is tomorrow. It is urgent. And we need to act immediately. At Nordic Edge Expo 2021, we will look ahead with leading players from academia, and the private and public sectors. Through collaboration, we will identify tomorrow’s challenges, discuss solutions, and learn from each other. The goal is to create a more sustainable tomorrow for all of us, leaving no one behind, says Karine Næss Frafjord, Head of Nordic Edge Expo.

Nordic Edge Expo is based in Stavanger, Norway. The city is the fourth-largest in Norway and has been known internationally as the energy capital of Europe. Rooted in a strong position with a highly skilled population and access to technology, the city has taken aim at developing a foothold in other industries. Already in 2014, the first steps towards becoming the smart city engine in Norway were taken. It started with becoming a lighthouse city in the European Union Triangulum project. This spawned a smart city roadmap and a smart city office in the local city administration. The goal has all along been new jobs and a transformation away from a reliance on the oil and gas industry. At the same time, the city has also aimed to become more environmentally responsible and improve citizen services. In other words, create the smarter and more sustainable Stavanger of tomorrow.

The very first Nordic Edge Expo was staged in 2015 to bring like–minded people together to find out what was happening in our cities and communities and how we could make them smarter with the developing technology available. The goal was to make Nordic Edge Expo the leading meeting place and smart city conference in the Nordics as a driving force in developing smart, sustainable and liveable cities, on account of the strong public sector, success in innovation and business and democratic values held in the region. Since then, we have built up the conference and exhibition to take an international position in the smart city market and putting smart city Stavanger on the map, while holding close ties with organisations from our Nordic neighbours.

By 2018, Nordic Edge Expo & Conference welcomed up to 5000 attendees from nearly 50 countries and hosted 200 exhibitors.

In 2020, along with many other conferences, Nordic Edge Expo went digital. Over one week, six live conferences from six cities in the Nordics and Europe took place, along with multiple workshops, parallel sessions, and side conferences from more than 200 partners,  reaching an audience of over 20,000.

What will happen at Nordic Edge Expo 2021?

• The 7th edition of Nordic Edge Expo, will be a hybrid version in 2021. We are planning for a full–scale TV-production from 20-23 September directly from the heart of Stavanger, and physical meeting places around the city centre, says Næss Frafjord.

While “It’s Tomorrow” is the theme and red thread of this year’s conference programme, topics such as Come Clean (Energy), On the Move (Mobility), Spaces and Places (Sustainable Buildings & Urban Planning) and Life Actually (Citizen Involvement) will be addressed by speakers and panelists in the four–day conference programme. Each day will also have parallell sessions linked to the topics. We will dive into the challenges and the opportunities of today, and tomorrow.We will discuss, showcase best-practice solutions, and find new collaborations.

• Our mission is to deliver the most valuable Smart City meeting place in the Nordics. Together with our many wonderful partners from the private sector, public sector, academia and start-up community we will work hard to bring people together and deliver an insightful event, as we have done every year since 2015, says Næss Frafjord.

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