WORLD SMART CITY AWARDS
Discover the pioneering projects selected for the finals of this year's edition
The annual World Smart City Awards is a prestigious international competition that seeks to recognize pioneering projects, ideas and strategies making cities around the world more livable, sustainable, and economically viable.
After another highly competitive process, with groundbreaking entries sent in from 63 countries worldwide, we now have our shortlist!
Discover the finalists of the 2023 World Smart City Awards
WORLD SMART CITY AWARDS - 2023 FINALISTS
The 2023 Call for Awards received 411 top-level proposals from 63 countries worldwide, and were of an exceptionally high standard.
Winners will be announced on November 8!
CITY AWARD
Awarded to Cities for developed global strategies combining projects, initiatives and policy implementations for their citizens.
#kyivdigital - Driving resilience under siege
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Kyiv Digital
Withstanding the increasing pressure of Russian siege the Kyiv Municipal Authority demonstrates how digital technologies help cities stay resilient with focus on public safety and sustainabilty, multimodal mobility system while ensuring 100% of administrative services online by 2030.
Bogotá CARE System
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Secretaría Distrital de la Mujer, Bogotá
The government of Bogotá decided to bring the city and its services to caregivers and care-receivers and integrate them into one space. This is the first ever city-level CARE System in Latin America that would require reorganizing how the city is planned with a gender focus.
Partnering with the Digitally Vulnerable
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Seoul Metropolitan Government
Smart Seoul platform + people-centered inclusion + with citizens
Seoul is actively promoting digital inclusion policies guaranteeing the five basic digital rights – communication, mobility, education, safety, and tech utilization – and providing digital services tailored to the socially vulnerable.
Food and Nutritional Security - Urban Agriculture and Social Development
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Curitiba City Hall
The Food and Nutritional Security programs in Curitiba promote food and nutritional security in the city, encompassing the implementation of urban gardens and farms, community engagement, technologies, education, sustainability, social assistance, healthy food and socioeconomic development.
Delivering a 22nd Century City in Sydney’s Western Parkland City – the Smart Western City Program
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Smart Places; Cities & Active Transport - Transport for NSW
The Program is transforming 100,000ha of Sydney into a hyperconnected, economic powerhouse. Catalysed by the new Western Sydney Airport, the population is set to double by 2036. 3 levels of government & industry are trialling smart technologies to improve liveability, resilience & social equity.
Toronto's Digital Infrastructure Strategic Framework: A principles-based approach for tech & data
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City of Toronto
The DISF sets out Toronto’s vision as a Digital Connected Community, responding to the opportunities and challenges of new/emerging Digital Infrastructure. The DISF guides Digital Infrastructure decisions and applications effectively to the right problems, operated in ethical ways.
CATEGORY
LEADERSHIP AWARD
Awarded to exemplary living individuals who
have made significant contributions to advancing smart cities projects worldwide
during the last 10 years.
Rafael Greca de Macedo
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Mayor of Curitiba, Brazil
Greca is a visionary politician, in his first mandate as Curitiba’s mayor, he worked to develop Curitiba as a sustainable and innovative city. In the last years, in his second and third mandates, contributed to making Curitiba even more accessible, sustainable and inclusive with the Pinhao Valley.
Pete Marland
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Leader of the Council, Milton Keynes, UK
As the city’s elected leader, Pete inspires from the front, coalescing & influencing to create the UKs most recognised & celebrated Smart City. Setting the city agenda, championing a range of projects including the city defining MK Futures 2050 strategy creating the context for innovation to thrive.
H.E. Reem Al Mansoori
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Assistant Undersecretary of Digital Society Development, Qatar
Inspiring an entire country is no simple task. Smart Qatar strategy & implemented series of programs, solutions, eco-systems is built with the guidance of Reem and is inspiring the entire country to digitally transform & collaborate. 1000's of tech jobs are created each year in Qatar under her drive.
Aníbal Gaviria Correa
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Governor of Antioquia, Colombia
He has based his actions in social sense and defense of life and peace. In adition, featured like a leadership in everyfields, specially in his executive capability and urban sensitivy. The fundamental key of his life and work, has been the public service and development with equality and justice.
Emilia Saiz
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Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments
Emilia Saiz is Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). She has worked with the international movement of local and regional governments in different capacities since 1997. She played a critical role in setting up the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments.
Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr
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Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone
Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE was sworn-in as Mayor of Freetown in May 2018 with a commitment to transform Freetown using an inclusive, data-driven approach to address challenges in the city.
CATEGORY
INNOVATION AWARD
Awarded to projects with the potential of contributing to the successful transformation, adaptation or response of our cities to the Covid-19 pandemic or others that may occur in the future.
Smart mobility for informal transport in emerging countries
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eWarren mobility Services
eWarren is an app offering traveler information and cashless payment to users of informal public transport in emerging countries. This is done by generating dynamic datasets in GTFS format and couple it with formal public transport to enable users to seamlessly use both formal and informal services.
Prioritizing lead service line replacement (LSLR) projects by children's actual exposure
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City of Malden, Massachusetts
By repurposing existing school and engineering GIS datasets, the City of Malden, MA used statistical modeling and mathematical optimization algorithms to optimize federal funding towards the lead water line replacement projects most likely to maximize reduction of childhood exposure across the city.
Automatic Road Inventory Using IA Techniques
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Intendencia de Montevideo
In order to improve the planning and resources allocation of the city's road and traffic signs system, a pilot project was carried out using computer vision and AI techniques to survey the actual conditions and extract relevant information to be included in the city’s road inventory system.
AutoSafety Uganda - Tackling Africa's road transport emissions and accidents from the source
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Wanyama Autosafety Initiatives
In the face of global climate emergency, high pollution and rampant road accidents around African cities; we devised a bottom-up community-driven approach to promote sustainable mobility in Uganda, with aim to scale across Africa.
Our solution surely supplements current interventions by governments.
City of Durban- Strat Hub
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eThekwini Municipality
The City of Durban launched its first ever Strategic Hub - which is also referred to as “Our Single Source of Truth”. The hub is a where members of the public, policy makers, business practitioners and municipality officials alike can access data and insights needed to make decisions.
“DataSmart Cities (DSC): Empowering Cities through Data”
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Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Government of India
DSC harnesses the power of data for better governance in India’s 100 Smart Cities. Based on a ‘People, Platform, Process’ strategy, this initiative is leading to convergence of Ministry’s efforts for performance management, empowerment of communities, and research, co-creation & open innovation.
PROJECT AWARDS
These prizes highlight innovative projects making waves within the sectors covered by our main tracks.
CATEGORY
ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in the fields of data and technology.
Smart City Data Platform Brugge, Leuven and Roeselare
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City of Bruges
In order to realise their Smart City goals, Brugge, Leuven and Roeselare have built a Smart City Data Platform that receives, stores, transforms and publishes (real-time) data streams in order to enable data-driven policy making, realise concrete Smart City projects and feed Digital Twins.
Serving 100 different family types – Creating wellbeing with real-time public data
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Gofore Plc
Data from multiple service registries was used to create an understanding for the needs of families in six municipalities in Finland with help of AI. A comprehensive situational picture of families gives up-to-date information to each level of the city from decision-maker to practical customer work.
Geospatial analysis framework for evaluating urban typologies in relation with the 15-minute city
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Aretian Urban Analytics and Design | Harvard
City typologies have a distinct effect on urban performance: we quantify this impact and provide comparisons for ten identified city typologies. We evaluate the ability for each city typology to achieve the standard of the 15-minute city, a decentralized city composed of walkable neighborhoods.
CATEGORY
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in relating to urban environments.
Rotterdam’s Heart of South Smart District
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City of Rotterdam
As part of the European H2020 project RUGGEDISED, the City of Rotterdam is implementing technical solutions in an integrated Smart Thermal Grid in the Hart van Zuid neighbourhood. The grid uses energy generated with the help of residents, businesses and buildings to fulfil local energy demands.
Comprehensive Project for Model Solid Waste Management and Environment Protection in Bangalore
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Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled
The proposal proposes for a solid waste management project in 10 wards in Bangalore city. The project promotes model waste management practices through forming Eco champion groups. The project also mobilises all stakeholders in the Ecosystem to sustain and co-operate with BBMP system.
City of Chicago Smart Streetlight Deployment and Maintenance Software
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TerraGo Technologies
Chicago's Smart Lighting Program represents one of the largest and most successful smart lighting programs in the world. They deployed TerraGo's next-generation streetlight operations software to accelerate energy savings, reduce truck rolls and reduce their carbon footprint.
CATEGORY
MOBILITY AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in the field of mobility.
BICIFICATION - Supporting modal shift and cycling through gamification and rewarding
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Pin Bike
BICIFICATION is the EIT Urban Mobility project rewarding urban riders in Braga, Istanbul, and Tallinn with economic incentives. The project adopted the patented system by Pin Bike for the certification, monitoring, and gamification of urban bike rides.
Incheon e-Eum: Connecting Smart Mobility All Together through Citizen centric Multimodal Service
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Incheon Metropolitan City
Incheon Metropolitan City of South Korea aims to provide an integrated multi-modal services through the seamless networked linkage of various modes of new transportation including micro-mobility and complement public transport coverage for traffic-vulnerable areas.
Digitalization of Traffic (DIGI-V) for the city of Wiesbaden (Germany)
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Yunex Traffic
Yunex Traffic and Aimsun support the city of Wiesbaden in the implementation of the model European project DIGI-V (Digitalization of Traffic in Wiesbaden) to lower traffic-related nitrogen oxide emissions with an extensive air pollution control package covering all areas of mobility.
CATEGORY
GOVERNANCE & ECONOMY AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in the fields of governance and finance.
Accelerating the Potential of Drones for Local Government
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Dublin City Council
Drones are increasingly used by local authorities and public bodies to enhance and support operations. This project brought together multidisciplinary teams, from several key sectors, to explore opportunities to better use this technology to deliver safer, more efficient services.
In the city of good neighbors, tech-plus government-university collaboration-keep citizens connected
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City of Buffalo
In just 48 hours, collaboration between the city of Buffalo, the University of Buffalo, and Cisco enabled the city’s call center agents to work remotely, allowing citizen engagement and response to continue. Today, the city relies on new hybrid models to meet the needs of all stakeholders.
Tianguis Digital: Open Contracting Strategy
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Digital Agency for Public Innovation, City of Mexico
The strategy promotes the openness of Mexico City's procurement by publishing all information of public procurement procedures in open data and under the Open Contracting Data Standard, in order to strengthen transparency and accountability, fight corruption and promote the region's development.
CATEGORY
LIVING & INCLUSION AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in relation to inclusive and sharing cities.
Valongo Switch to Innovation
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Valongo Municipality
Switch to Innovation is a project that brings together several social innovation initiatives aimed at improving people's quality of life with technology, making them more autonomous, critical, connected and able to participate actively in public life.
AI for Inclusive Urban Sidewalks
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G3ict - The Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs
The AI for Inclusive Urban Sidewalks project was implemented in 2021-2022 in 5 cities across Americas to map and evaluate accessibility of urban sidewalks in order to build and improve an AI pipeline to infer the location and connectivity of sidewalks throughout these cities.
Social Territories: Evidence-based public policy
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Instituto Pereira Passos, Rio de Janeiro
Social Territories is an integrated, intersectorial initiative of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall that, based on evidence, identifies families in extreme vulnerability situations, promoting their social inclusion, in order to reduce their social risk.
CATEGORY
INFRASTRUCTURE & BUILDING AWARD
CIUDAD 3D: A new tool to promote urban development in the City of Buenos Aires
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Buenos Aires City Government
It’s a digital platform that allows visualizing in three dimensions what can be built in each neighborhood of the City, providing information on the makeup of each block, current construction procedures and greater agility in the application of the Urban Code of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
Sejong National Pilot Smart City, the new leap forward for Korea’s smart city
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Korea Land & Housing Corporation
The Sejong National Pilot Smart City is a next-generation smart city model in Korea that combines various functions. It promotes business through the establishment of a public-private joint business corporations, tests new technologies of private companies through deregulation.
5G Smart Pole
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Taipei Smart City Project Management Office
The system of smart pole has become an important development trend of smart cities, covering: communication, lighting, transportation, environment and public safety. It can also drive the co-development of telecommunications, lighting and IoT-related industries.
CATEGORY
SAFETY & SECURITY AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in relation to urban safety and security.
G42 Smart Nation’s AI-powered Smart Security Solution Keeps World Expo 2020 Dubai Safe and Secure
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G42 Smart Nation
Expo 2020 Dubai was the first World Expo held in the Middle East and Africa region. Expo 2020 welcomed a total of 24 million visits. G42 Smart Nation enabled the UAE Government authorities to ensure citizen safety by providing AI-powered security, surveillance, and vehicle management solutions.
Towards Smart Events - Smart Urban Security and Event Resilience (SURE)
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City of Tampere
SURE leverages event-related smart technology to make daily lives of citizens and visitors safer and more secure in Tampere. With data, AI and IoT, SURE is capable to predict crowd movements and identify disruptive behavior, thus decrease security incidents and prevent urban security vulnerabilities
HackShield, Junior Cyber Agents; creating digital awareness and online safety
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City of Amsterdam
Development of a game where children play the role of good cop to catch the cyber criminals and learn about online safety and digital awareness. Scoring points means becoming a real Junior Cyber Agent and get a shield from the local police department
