Barcelona: One of the World’s pioneering Smart Cities

While working for Cisco I was a key trusted advisor to the the City of Barcelona between 2011 and 2013. While flying from Singapore to Barcelona every month I was able to help Barcelona define their strategic smart city technology roadmap and to help create the City Protocol Society; a knowledge based sharing network for smart cities. This period from 2010 to 2013 was the  “boom” time for smart cities across the world, and in particular for the City of Barcelona, which is considered one of the pioneers of the concept of a smart city. In fact, during this time Barcelona received over 200 visits per annum from other cities keen to learn the “Barcelona model”.

The Barcelona strategy was very much built around using technologies to improve city services while having a strong Eco-system creation plan in place to attract business to Barcelona. Hence the development in preceding years of the @22 tech district, with its comprehensive digital infrastructure, was pivotal in attracting companies to not only locate in Barcelona but to co-create smart city R&D. Barcelona wisely managed to capitalise on its appeal as a business destination to in turn attract solutions that would improve the city.

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…the @22 tech district, with its comprehensive digital infrastructure, was pivotal in attracting companies to not only locate in Barcelona but to co-create smart city R&Dd.