Track: | Governance & Economy |

An interactive session convening investors, cities, EU institutions, governments, and growth partners, with the support of EIT Urban Mobility, to explore how to better connect with and support high-potential mobility startups from emerging innovation regions.The session is grounded in real startup stories and expansion cases, with founders sharing concrete scaling challenges and barriers, followed by live responses to support scaling.

Tech sovereignty is becoming a defining consideration in the roll-out of AI solutions across cities. As local governments accelerate AI adoption, they face growing challenges around regulatory compliance, resource allocation, citizen trust, and integration in the existing infrastructure. This session will explore how cities are balancing innovation and AI while navigating an evolving geopolitical landscape, where questions of societal impact, strategic autonomy and control over sensitive infrastructure and technologies are becoming increasingly pressing.

A livable city is one that enables people to move, access services, care and be cared for safely and independently. Co-organized by CAF and UN Women, this session will explore how gender perspectives can be integrated into urban planning through safer and more inclusive mobility, care infrastructure, and the right to time, while addressing the inequalities that limit women’s autonomy and economic opportunities. It will also examine how investment can help scale solutions that make cities more inclusive and livable for all.

A high-level gathering that connects Latin American cities, governments, innovators, and urban solution providers shaping the future of the region.


Hosted by Trend Smart Cities, the event creates a space for meaningful conversations, partnerships, and collaboration around the most pressing urban challenges in LATAM — from mobility and climate resilience to digital transformation and quality of life.

This joint session of the different Working Groups of the Innpulso Network is aimed at sharing the results of the work carried out by them throughout 2026.

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.

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.

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.

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

This co-organized session presents the CEMR–28DIGITAL programme “Empowering Local Leaders Through AI” and its AI training for local and regional governments’ leaders. By bringing together politicians and partners to discuss the importance of local leaders’ AI literacy for improving governance, and the need to scale practical capacity-building efforts to support cities and regions across Europe.

Smart cities must focus on people and be as human as those who inhabit them. Integrating a child-centered approach—addressing the needs and voices of children and adolescents through their participation—improves responses to challenges such as climate, mobility, and housing. UNICEF promotes a rights-based approach, with global standards and participation, to achieve more accessible, sustainable, and inclusive cities.

With increasingly complex shocks and stresses, cities must strengthen their capacity not only to respond and adapt to disruption, but to anticipate them. This session questions how urban areas are preparing for extreme weather events, infrastructure stress, and growing social vulnerability through more resilient planning, risk management, and coordinated emergency response. The discussion also explores how urban environments can mitigate negative effects of climate change, build resilience amid uncertainty, enhance coordinated emergency response and protect long-term urban prosperity.

How cities are anticipating, preparing for and absorbing escalating climate impacts: from extreme weather events to infrastructure stress and social vulnerability.

The conversation explores the intersection of efficiency, citizen experience and societal impact by examining how technological innovation is helping governments become more agile, systematic, and responsive. Highlighting new opportunities for automation, streamlined workflows, reduced operational burdens, and stronger coordination across departments, the session will consider how these shifts are reshaping the way public administrations operate and deliver services. Building on this, practical applications and key challenges can be identified and examined to inform future action.

Governments are using data, AI and automation to modernize institutions, deliver better public services and transform the way they operate – from the inside out.

Building resilient cities requires new approaches that connect infrastructure investment, energy systems, and long-term urban development strategies. This session will explore how cities and industry leaders can collaborate to accelerate the delivery of future-ready infrastructure while balancing economic growth, sustainability, and operational efficiency. From investment models and energy transition pathways to public–private partnerships that enable scalable solutions. Strengthening coordination across sectors will be essential to creating resilient, investable, and economically sustainable urban ecosystems.

As cities adapt to growing pressures such as climate change and population growth, urban leaders must rethink infrastructure, buildings, and energy systems to build safer, more sustainable, and future-ready urban environments. Built on today’s breakthroughs and tomorrow’s innovations, what lies ahead is both ambitious and fast approaching. Yet making this vision a reality will require the right funding models and strategic partnerships. This plenary explores what resilient urban infrastructure could look like by 2050, and how AI, energy systems, adaptive design principles, and new models of collaboration may reshape the future of urban life.

Welcome to our 2026 edition – the global stage where urban innovation comes to life. This opening session sets the tone for an exciting journey ahead, with a warm welcome from Smart City Expo director Ugo Valenti and Tomorrow.Mobility president Marc Rozendal. Joining them are high-level representatives who will share how territories around the world are becoming better places to live and thrive. Get ready for three action-packed days of bold ideas and groundbreaking strategies from around the globe.

Cities worldwide are embracing open innovation to tackle urban challenges and accelerate smart city transformation. This event will showcase how public entities launch innovation calls, test emerging technologies, and collaborate with startups and solution providers. Discover upcoming innovation procurement opportunities, public-private programmes, and real opportunities to co-develop the solutions shaping tomorrow’s cities.

Large-scale urban transformation requires bold financing. Exploring the innovative models, international funds & publicprivate strategies that are making ambitious cities possible.

How are Latin American cities scaling digital transformation? This co-organized brings together representatives from municipalities across the region to share lessons on governance, financing, and institutional design. Through practical experiences, the session will explore how cities are moving from innovation pilots to develop sustainable urban digital policies, strengthen institutional capacity and ensure long-term impact.

EDINT will have 12 local entities and 36 companies in its initial stage. This event is aimed at users involved in EDINT in order to discuss the current status and next steps.

This session will explore how cities can combine policy, urban planning, and social innovation to reduce consumption-based emissions while improving quality of life. Drawing on the 1.5-Degree Lifestyles framework developed by the Hot or Cool Institute, the discussion will examine how local authorities can shape the systems that influence everyday choices—including housing, mobility, food, consumption, and public procurement—rather than relying solely on individual behavioural change.

The session will showcase practical examples already being implemented across the Mediterranean, including innovative solutions tested through the Interreg Euro-MED Programme, circular food initiatives such as those developed by the Espigoladors Foundation in Barcelona, and urban planning approaches that promote compact, resilient, and low-carbon cities. Together, these experiences will illustrate how tested local solutions can be translated into policies that accelerate decarbonisation, reduce resource use, and support a just transition towards climate-compatible lifestyles.

A relaxed moment to have a drink and mingle with other attendees at the venue’s main entrance after the World Smart City Awards gala.

Hosted by the ICF, this full-day side event explores how communities can move from smart technology adoption to intelligent, people-centered impact. Leaders from the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Spain, Brazil, Taiwan and more will discuss AI, infrastructure, governance, collaboration and innovation strategies that strengthen local economies and improve citizen quality of life.

This open side event will launch NewMed2030 and its regional Community of Practice, connecting cities, donors and practitioners around practical approaches to urban resilience, participatory planning and inclusive local development. The session will combine a short launch, city/practitioner voices and an interactive exchange on how Mediterranean cities can turn local experience into regional learning.

When buses, rail, micromobility, freight and cars share one network, technical integration outpaces institutional coordination. This session confronts the governance question: who holds decision rights, how data and authority are shared across operators and cities, and what keeps networks resilient when disruptions cross modal and jurisdictional boundaries. And how do we incorporate users in a fair and effective way?

Public innovation advances when technology finds a meaningful place within institutions. Making that happen requires trust, real validation, effective procurement and clear pathways to scale. This session explores how public institutions can work with startups to move from experimentation to adoption, and what conditions are needed to turn open innovation into lasting public impact.

This session will examine why pilot projects often struggle to scale and what is required to translate them into sustainable urban policies and initiatives. Drawing on the experiences of local governments, private sectors, and leading cities, the discussion will explore key factors for advancing smart city initiatives in emerging cities. The session will also highlight the value of start-ups’ participation in addressing urban challenges.

Cities, citizens and investors all want a thriving, sustainable future. What is missing are the conditions that make acting on that care possible. Drawing on the Lisbon Council’s Sustainable Cities Lab, this session explores how cooperation, investment, citizen engagement and cross-sector alliances can help build sustainable cities people trust, use and love.

Privacy, connectivity and non-discrimination are no longer optional features of city life, they are foundational rights that deserve the same status in city governance as roads or water. This session makes the political case for embedding digital rights at the heart of municipal strategy, and illustrates what that commitment looks like in practice.

Explore how robotics, AI and robot-avatar technologies are transforming cities and society. Featuring insights from Japan and Catalonia, the session will highlight Dr. Takayuki Kanda’s pioneering work in Human-Robot Interaction and Social Robotics, with a live robot-avatar demonstration. Three Catalan startups will conclude the session with elevator pitches showcasing innovative solutions with global potential.

At a time of growing urban complexity, collaboration is more essential than ever. This session showcases joint projects and alliances that demonstrate how partnerships can build capacity, accelerate action, and amplify impact. Emphasizing also the importance of multi-level collaboration, not only between cities and territories, but also among stakeholders within the same city. Through concrete examples, the session illustrates why cooperation matters and how stronger coordination can help address shared challenges in a more inclusive and effective way.

Digital transformation requires networks and partnerships that help cities turn ambition into implementation. Moderated by IDB Cities LAB, this interactive discussion brings together representatives from Brazil’s Ministry of Cities and Spain’s Smart Cities Network (RECI) to explore how national programs and city networks accelerate innovation, strengthen local capacities, and scale knowledge exchange.

No city solves alone. Cross-sector alliances, city-to-city cooperation and multi-stakeholder partnerships are emerging as the most effective response to shared urban challenges.

This discussion focuses on the central role of finance and investment in enabling urban transformation and supporting the progress cities need across the world. Looking at climate finance, partnership schemes, and global funding mechanisms, the session examines how these models contribute to sustainable urban development and are gaining relevance within the global urban agenda, especially where access to resources determines cities’ ability to move from ambition to implementation. Lastly, it questions how financing and investment approaches may evolve in the years ahead to address existing challenges and respond to growing priorities.

How are cities turning innovation into real impact? Join RECI and Red Innpulso for a conversation with three cities showcasing projects, partnerships and strategies driving urban innovation. From digitalization and clean mobility to energy, housing, inclusion and governance, discover what works, the challenges ahead, and lessons for more sustainable, resilient and people-centred cities.

As cities seek to become more efficient, sustainable, and responsive, AI is emerging as a powerful tool to support better urban decision-making. City governments are integrating AI into their operations to improve forecasting, optimize resource allocation, and strengthen planning across key areas of urban management. The discussion explores how municipalities are turning data into practical action and measurable outcomes for better city governance, while also reflecting on the new opportunities AI creates for public decision-making, as well as the institutional and operational challenges involved in embedding these technologies into the structures of public administration.

The challenge for cities is no longer simply collecting data but making it useful. This keynote shows an AI-powered platform turning fragmented data into actionable intelligence. By integrating urban domains and enabling teams to interact with data through a conversational AI interface, users can obtain insights, explore information and generate dashboards instantly. The session shows how this approach can reduce barriers to data analysis, empower non-technical users and accelerate evidence-based decision-making.

How city governments are embedding AI into their operations – for prediction, resource allocation and sustainable urban development. Real deployments, real outcomes.

This panel explores how digital urban prototypes can move from one-off pilots to projects that are ready to finance, scale and deliver real impact. Led by the IDB Group, the session brings together IDB Cities LAB, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute and the City of Vitória, Brazil, to discuss how public and private capital can share risk and return, align investment with urban priorities, and turn bold ideas into deployable solutions.

Artificial intelligence is redefining the future of cities and communities. The convergence of AI, digital twins, spatial intelligence, robotics, and the AI-enabled Citiverse is creating a new generation of places that are increasingly intelligent, adaptive, and autonomous. As local and regional governments face growing challenges from housing and urban planning to climate resilience, mobility, and public service delivery, the opportunity is to harness these technologies to build more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous communities. Realizing this vision requires international interoperable standards, forward-looking governance, sustainable digital infrastructure, and global collaboration to ensure that innovation delivers lasting public value and improves quality of life for all.

AI is rapidly becoming a new operating system for cities, shaping how governments anticipate needs, design services, allocate resources and engage with citizens. As it becomes embedded in urban decision-making, cities must ask who designs these systems, who can access the opportunities they create and who benefits. From GovTech innovation to inclusive skills and accountable leadership, how can cities ensure the AI transition works for everyone?

As cities are in constant evolution, so are the opportunities to strengthen their economic profile and long-term competitiveness. This session explores the different strategies cities can adopt to capitalize on these opportunities by attracting talent and investment, supporting sustainable growth, and fostering knowledge-based industries. Through a range of examples, the session examines how these dynamics can drive innovation, expand economic potential, and enhance urban competitiveness.

Books shape how we think about cities — and sometimes, how we govern them. The day after the Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award ceremony, the winning author joins jury members and urban practitioners from around the world for a live debate on the book's core arguments. What do its ideas mean for the cities we are building today? Where do theory and practice diverge — and where do they converge?

Cities are key drivers of economic growth, innovation, and social progress, making effective governance and strong economic strategies essential for long-term success. As urban systems become more complex and interconnected, governments must adapt quickly to evolving challenges, supported by digital tools, data-driven decision-making, and strengthened institutional capabilities. At the same time, cities need to invest in resilient long-term strategies and reinforce the economic and political foundations that support competitiveness, stability, and prosperity. This session presents practical approaches and real-world solutions that help shape more efficient, adaptive, and future-oriented urban governance and economic systems.

Tourism, commerce, talent, startups, knowledge industries: the forces shaping urban competitiveness. How are cities attracting what they need to thrive in a changing global economy?