I have just returned to Buenos Aires from a week in Barcelona at the Smart Cities World Congress. I had the opportunity to speak about economic policies conducive to smart city transformation. But more importantly I had the opportunity to interact with a range of thought leaders and key actors in the smart city movement.
While there was plenty of good content at the conference, the most important takeaways for me came from the interactions with people from around the globe who are helping to lead the transition to smarter cities, one city, one neighbourhood at a time.
After all was said and done, my biggest takeaway from my experience interacting with people like Pablo Chillon, Esteve Almirall, Claudio Forghieri, Pilar Conesa, Jeb Brugmann, Nagore de los Rios, Julia Lopez Ventura, Nicole Ferrero, Manuel Portela, Mara Balestrini, Marc Garriga, Manel Sanorma and dozens more, is that smart cities will only succeed if we have truly smart people from mayors and staff to citizens engaged in the transformation process.
For more on these insights, please review my latest post in UBM Future Cities.
