Celebrating Innovation:
2025 World Smart City Award Winners
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 462 top-level proposals from 65 countries, this year’s winners were announced at a gala held during Smart City Expo 2025.
Discover the winning entries below. Congratulations to all!
WORLD SMART CITY AWARDS - 2025 WINNERS
Meet the winners, finalists and their groundbreaking projects for each awards category.
CITY AWARD
Awarded to cities for developed global strategies combining projects, initiatives and policy implementations for their citizens.
Tech Empowers the Canal City
—
—
Yangzhou, China
Yangzhou utilizes digital tools to boost industrial upgrades, urban governance, and tourism. With policies promoting data, computing, and talent, it ranks among China’s top digital cities. Smart services, eco-monitoring, and AI-driven tourism fuel a livable, sustainable 'Yangzhou Model.'
CRESCER: Pact with nature
—
—
Santiago de Cali, Colombia
CRESCER is Cali’s long-term urban strategy to grow without compromising its environmental or social foundations. Grounded in resilience, equity, sustainability, and respect for nature, it integrates urban planning, social transformation, and environmental restoration – starting from the Cauca River.
INNOVATION AWARD
Awarded to projects with the potential of contributing to the successful transformation, adaptation or response of our cities to current challenges or others that may occur in the future.
ManKiwwa
—
—
Deegenics Pvt Ltd,
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Colombo, Sri Lanka
ManKiwwa is a civic tech platform that empowers citizens to voice public issues and emergencies in real-time, while notifying and enabling authorities to track, respond to, and manage them efficiently by bridging governance gaps, promoting accountability, and improving urban responsiveness.
Operation Clean Spot
—
—
Sustainable Seas Trust,
Gqeberha, South Africa
Gqeberha, South Africa
OCS helps concerned citizens & businesses in the value chain to reduce land-based litter. By empowering partners with training & support resources to (1) adopt a spot within their communities & (2) keep it clean of waste, SST believes that Africa will decrease the volume of waste entering its seas.
Hambaksan Park : Urban-Nature Connection
—
—
Korea Land & Housing Corporation,
Jinju City, Republic of Korea
Jinju City, Republic of Korea
Hambaksan Park in Pyeongtaek Godeok New Town is a restored egret habitat transformed into an ecological park. Integrating a carbon offset forest, retention basins, and recycled water systems, it embodies an Eco-Sponge Park model, promoting climate resilience and sustainable urban living.
Weelo MultiFIT Adaptive Hub
—
—
Bicincitta Italia Srl,
Turin, Italy
Turin, Italy
Solar-powered MultiFIT pods provide cities with a plug-&-play hub, offering secure bike parking, delivery lockers, and cargo bays in one. Couriers unload overnight in a single trip; cargo-bikes deliver the next day. One modular pod, infinitely configurable to neighbourhood needs.
LEADERSHIP AWARD
Awarded to exemplary living individuals who
have made significant contributions to advancing smart cities projects worldwide
during the last 10 years.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD
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.
Sensora.lu Crisis-Tested IoT
—
—
MABU Concepts S.A.,
Stadtbredimus, Luxembourg
Stadtbredimus, Luxembourg
Unified IoT platform integrating all municipal data with Gateways aswell as LoraWAN Gateways with 10km range LoRaWAN sensors. Building automation, energy monitoring, water level detection, weather stations, smart thermostats with Office 365. Crisis-tested flood prevention. Any hardware compatible.
Sunderland: Smart by design
—
—
Sunderland City Council & partner Boldyn Networks,
Sunderland, UK
Sunderland, UK
Sunderland City Council & Boldyn Networks are transforming the city through layered smart innovation – 5G, data‑driven resilience and inclusive digital infrastructure – to deliver accessible connectivity, social value and sustainable economic growth for residents, businesses and visitors.
Smart City Tokyo Bay Takeshiba
—
—
Tokyu Land Corporation,
Japan
Japan
The Tokyo Bay area has a large daytime population and faces issues such as urban use and a lack of disaster prevention measures. Area management utilizes real-time data with multi-stakeholder collaboration to strengthen disaster resilience and promote area circulation by utilizing digital devices.
CATEGORY
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in relating to urban environments.
WINNER
LYON CONFLUENCE Digital Twin
—
—
KINTSUGI-LOWCARBON,
Chartres-de-Bretagne, France
Chartres-de-Bretagne, France
Lyon Confluence becomes Europe’s first Positive Energy District, monitored in real time through a digital twin designed by UrbanThinkPlatform®. Climate intelligence serving territories, businesses, and future generations — making climate data useful, visible, and collective.
Smart Agro-Climate Platform
—
—
Ibacho Technical Training College,
Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi, Kenya
A smart agro-climate platform using drones, satellite imagery, and AI to help smallholder farmers in Kenya adapt to climate risks through real-time, localized decision-making tools and predictive models.
Smart Crisis Management – Emerge
—
—
iot squared, Saudi Arabia
Smart Crisis Management – Emerge is a national platform developed by iot squared to unify Saudi Arabia’s emergency and crisis response. It enables real-time coordination across 17 regions through IoT integration, analytics, and digital command dashboards, transforming fragmented emergency operations into a proactive, data-driven, and resilient national system.
CATEGORY
MOBILITY AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in the field of mobility.
Shuttlemare Rimini
—
—
Shotl Transportation SL,
Rimini & Sant Cugat del Vallès,
Italy & Spain
Rimini & Sant Cugat del Vallès,
Italy & Spain
Shuttlemare is an on-demand summer transport service connecting Rimini’s beaches with hotels and residential areas. Operated via Shotl’s platform, it improves accessibility and reduces traffic by dynamically routing shared rides in real time.
AI Transit Stops Inspections
—
—
The Regional Municipality of York and CITYROVER,
Richmond Hill, ON, Canada
Richmond Hill, ON, Canada
York Region, in collaboration with CITYROVER, expanded AI use to buses to inspect over 6,000 stops automatically. The system automatically and proactively detects in real time mobility, safety, cleanliness, and accessibility issues at a great efficiency, supporting faster resolution.
Dosy: Mobility for Inclusion
—
—
Cairo, Egypt
Dosy is a tech platform empowering women through scooter and bicycle training, promoting green, inclusive mobility. It offers online booking, flexible training, and job opportunities for women, tackling gender gaps in transport across urban Egypt.
CATEGORY
INFRASTRUCTURE & BUILDING AWARD
15min Index within Riyadh City
—
—
Riyadh Region Municipality, Saudi Arabia
15-Minute Index,applied via RUDC platforms and MyCity app, assesses walkable access to daily services in Riyadh.It supports strategic decisions and enhances public experience, promoting liveable, people-centred planning aligned with The Municipality’s vision; Improve the Quality of Life of people.
BIMFabrikHH
—
—
State Office Geoinformation and Surveying Hamburg, Germany
Hamburg manages and makes a wide variety of data and information available to the public. Much of this data serves for construction projects. As part of the CUT-project, a freely accessible open-source web tool is being developed that automatically creates BIM models from the geospatial twin.
Morar Melhor Project
—
—
City Hall of Salvador, Brazil
Morar Melhor is a program that makes improvements to precarious homes, promoting health and dignity to residents, without altering the original aesthetics of the buildings, strengthening citizenship and quality of life.
CATEGORY
GOVERNANCE & ECONOMY AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in the fields of governance and finance.
Córdoba Smart City Fund
—
—
Córdoba Municipality, Argentina
This initiative by the Córdoba Municipality in collaboration with IDB Lab is the first govtech fund in Latin America. It involves investing in high-impact startups and operates as an open innovation program, where startups implement solutions that contribute to the development of a smarter city.
Data-Driven Governance in Lviv
—
—
Lviv City Council, Ukraine
The integration of Public Budget, E-Petitions, and City Hotline engages citizens in decision-making and ensures transparency. Data from these services form datasets published on the Lviv Open Data Portal, Geoportal, and Dashboard, enabling evidence-based management and tangible urban improvements.
Road Resurfacing Governance
—
—
Riyadh Infrastructure Projects Center (RIPC), Saudi Arabia
The project integrates utility data into a centralized GIS platform to adopt logical sequencing for resurfacing efforts, preventing re-excavations & improving cross-sector governance. This undertaking has led to savings of over 700Mn SAR till date & enhanced the quality of life for 9Mn residents.
CATEGORY
LIVING & INCLUSION AWARD
Awarded to the most innovative and successful projects being implemented and developed in relation to inclusive and sharing cities.
Cruzadas por Juárez
—
—
Juárez Municipal Government, Mexico
This program brings municipal government services directly to peripheral neighborhoods, transforming community spaces into temporary service centers where citizens can address multiple needs in one place, eliminating geographical and economic barriers.
Inclusion on the Waterfront
—
—
Belfast City Council, UK
Working with a local charity, universities and creatives, Belfast City Council delivered collaborated with local communities to utilise digital innovation techniques to explore and enrich the heritage, culture and stories associated with the city’s historic maritime mile, home of the famous Titanic.
My Purple Map Bursa
—
—
Bursa Metropolitan Municipality,
Bursa, Türkiye
Bursa, Türkiye
A digital map-based platform connecting gender-based violence victims in Bursa to nearby support services, enhancing accessibility, safety, and social inclusion through real-time, location-based guidance.
A new trophy to honour our commitment to sustainability
In line with our Towards Zero Waste initiative —designed to minimize the environmental footprint of event celebrations— and the Smart City Expo’s mission to build efficient, inclusive, and sustainable cities, we’ve launched a brand-new trophy created by Trophy House. This trophy fully reflects our values, embedding them into its design, fabrication process, and the materials used.
Trophy House manufactured the trophy using resins derived from soybean oil and filled it with fishing nets recovered from the sea. The packaging, made of cork, protects the trophy while also communicating sustainability through a natural, reusable, and low-impact material.
Moreover, this trophy —a miniature piece of architecture featuring geometric figures— symbolizes cities growing and thriving upon the principles that define the smart cities of the future. A bright horizon, like a white canvas, ready to be drawn and painted.
A true example of sustainable and innovative design.
