STAGE SESSIONS

An open exchange of ideas on how cities can become more liveable, resilient and inclusive. Through informal conversations with practitioners and innovators from different sectors, this session explores emerging approaches to urban challenges, from mobility and public space to digital services and citizen participation. Format and speakers to be announced.

As cities move from pilot projects to city‑wide smart water deployments, many discover that proprietary connectivity and data models lock them into single vendors and constrain innovation. This panel will bring together a city/utility leader, meter and platform vendors, and the Open Mobile Alliance to discuss how standards‑based connectivity can unlock scalable, future‑proof water management.

One year after presenting a shared European CitiVerse vision at SCEWC 25, the four EU co-funded projects return to showcase real results from pilot cities across Europe. Through live demonstrations, practical use cases and lessons learned, the session explores how immersive digital infrastructure can create public value for citizens, cities and regions.

The COD is a sovereign AI platform designed to help cities, metropolitan authorities, and public organizations engage citizens at scale while transforming citizen feedback into actionable policy insights. By combining conversational AI, semantic analysis, and collective intelligence methodologies, COD enables personalized, two-way dialogues with residents based on their interests, concerns, and local priorities.

This space will address the current state of progress of the data spaces that will help drive a data economy thanks to the advancement of digitization of local authorities

Can youth ideas help shape the future of our cities? This inspiring session brings together global city leaders and brilliant youth voices from the C40's Students Reinventing Cities competition. Through a dynamic roundtable, discover practical, groundbreaking approaches to tackling urban climate challenges and innovation. Join us to unlock powerful collaboration strategies that translate youth-led ideas into real-world urban transformation.

Mediterranean cities increasingly face the impacts of climate change, from extreme heat and water stress to growing pressure on infrastructure and public spaces. The session explores how cities can scale adaptation through nature-based solutions, innovative governance approaches and new financing mechanisms. Drawing on concrete experiences from the Mediterranean, speakers will share practical pathways to more resilient urban environments.

Cities cause 70% of global emissions but only control a fraction directly. To meet climate targets, they must collaborate with the private sector. Hosted by GCoM, this panel explores the City Business Climate Alliance (CBCA) framework by C40 and GCoM. Mayors and business leaders will share how to align corporate targets with municipal climate action plans to unlock accelerated action.

The session aims to bring together city representatives and technical partners/tool providers to accelerate the adoption of digital twin applications at the city level, filling the gap between the potential of what is offered and the actual uptake by local administrations and decision-makers. The session will leverage the engagement of municipalities within city networks and other initiatives with the support and expertise of technical partners.

This session presents the MICAD Toolkit, a practical guide for local and metropolitan authorities to design inclusive climate and digital transition roadmaps. Through key insights and examples, it shows how to move beyond smart city solutions towards coordinated, participatory and metropolitan-scale transformation.

What does, and should, smart lighting serve ultimately? Urban lighting is evolving into a strategic service supporting energy efficiency, sustainability, resilience and smarter city management.
With industry experts, cities will explore how to move beyond technology-driven approaches to offer more human-centred lighting strategies through connected systems, digital twins, integrating green spaces for sustainable nighttime environments for all.

The event means to present the MCE Community (formerly Major Cities of Europe) as a European network of cities and regions, fostering cooperation, exchanging experience and supporting innovation and digital transformation of local authorities and their services to citizens.
During the event the representatives of the MCE Community will illustrate the network main activities and some of the members' experiences will be introduced.

Communities worldwide are investing heavily in AI, digital infrastructure and smart city technologies. But similar investments do not guarantee similar outcomes, as maximizing return requires more than technology alone. Explore how effective governance, cross-sector collaboration, workforce development and long-term strategy combine to transform technology investments into lasting economic growth, resilience and improved quality of life.

This session will explore global startup trends, emerging innovation hotspots, investment flows and ecosystem benchmarking. Drawing on StartupBlink’s international rankings and research, it will examine what makes urban innovation ecosystems competitive and resilient, and where new opportunities are emerging. The panel will bring together cities, innovation agencies, public-sector organisations and leading startup ecosystems.

What if startups didn't have to pitch first? Hosted by Choose Paris Region, Reverse Pitch flips the traditional format. Instead of startups pitching to corporates, ten innovation leaders from major companies, public institutions and the Paris Region innovation ecosystem pitch their open innovation opportunities directly to startups and scale-ups.

A space where projects, corporates, and investors can have smooth conversations about solutions and innovative technologies that can help drive the world toward sustainability goals on the 2050 agenda.

Five finalists. One winner. Twenty minutes that could change what gets built in your city next.

The QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge Top 5 take the stage for a live fireside panel — introducing their solutions, unpacking the urban challenges they're solving, and sharing what they need to scale. The session closes with the live winner announcement.

Driven by the Barcelona Innova Lab Mobility (BILM), this session block brings together leading international cities to exchange experiences, challenges and best practices in urban mobility innovation. Through moderated roundtables, city representatives will discuss how innovation, collaboration and experimentation are shaping the future of urban mobility.

This session showcases Barcelona as a living lab for urban mobility innovation through the Barcelona Innova Lab Mobility (BILM). It presents the programme’s methodology, highlights key outcomes from completed pilots, and shares progress from ongoing projects shaping a more sustainable, efficient and citizen-centred mobility model.

How can young people help shape safer urban mobility? This session will showcase an innovative partnership between Chery, iRAP and RACC to improve school journeys in Barcelona through data-driven road safety interventions and youth participation. Discover how digital tools, community engagement and cross-sector collaboration can create safer, more inclusive and sustainable mobility environments for children and cities alike.

Cities worldwide invest in mobility innovation, yet many solutions remain stuck in pilots. This session explores how Austria has successfully implemented real, scalable urban mobility systems in daily use today. It showcases proven approaches in public transport, multimodal connectivity, first/last mile and shared mobility, focusing on what actually works and why pilots fail to scale.

Airport cities are often isolated, technically advanced entities ideal as test environments for other business districts. Although discussed for decades, market forces have not fully discovered their potential, and airports often develop urban environments without being aware of it. This stream aims to highlight the opportunities and challenges of airport city development and to foster dialogue with other neighborhood developments.

As AVs deploy on European streets, local governments have a lot to learn. European cities need new tools for policy, data sharing, curb management, and oversight. This panel brings together global perspectives from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Waymo, Veluto, and the Open Mobility Foundation, exploring how cities can move from reactive to proactive stewardship, connecting U.S. experience with European regulatory realities and fast "followship".