Morgenstadt at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona

Morgenstadt at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona

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This year the Morgenstadt Initiative was represented at the world leading Smart City Urban Fair on 14-16. November 2017 in Barcelona at the joint stand of Berlin-Brandenburg as well as withTriangulum and Bable in panels.

Barcelona – The international fair and congress for the sustainable improvement of the life quality in cities attracts more than 17,000 trade visitors, there are more than 675 international exhibitors and more than 420 experts taking part in the keynote speachers. This year's congress focused on strategies to empower large cities and their citizens to take control over key decisions and resources through active participation, critical reflection and awareness raising.

For the first time the Morgenstadt initiative was represented with ist own unit, while the last year it was through the European project "Triangulum", which was represented at the European Commission's stand. Since the city of Berlin being a Morgenstadt partner offered the Morgenstadt initiative to be a part of the joint stand Berlin-Brandenburg, the Fraunhofer IAO took on behalf of the network this offer. The "German" corner consisted of the stands Berlin-Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. Along with the initiative, the Morgenstadt partners from urban institute and Tüv Süd were represented there.

In addition to productive discussions with the partners and interested parties, a special highlight was the visit of the State Secretary of the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Businesses Christian Rickerts with a German delegation, in the framewoork of which in addition to start-up pitches at the Berlin-Brandenburg stand on Wednesday morning there was organized a Morgenstadt session.

After the presentation of the Morgenstadt initiative by Dr. Natalie Pfau-Weller (Fraunhofer IAO), the Mayor of Eindhoven John Jorristma explained the benefits of membership in the Morgenstadt initiative and introduced a smart district Brainport. Then the focus of the panels was on the internationalization of the Morgenstadt-Initiaitive: The researcher Marielisa Padilla presented the Mobility City Lab Joinville and explained first the methodology of the City Labs and then the achievements of the Brazilian city in cooperation with the German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH. At the end the researcher Damian Wagner (Fraunhofer IAO) presented the current Indian activities, for example in Coimbatore and Kochi in cooperation with "Buidling the City of Tomorrow" of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Also the European projects "Triangulum" and "Smarter Together" were represented at the joint stand of the European Commission and various panels took place. Furthermore, the researcher Nikita Shetty introduced "Bable". The network leader Natalie Pfau-Weller draws a positive summary of the fair: "We are pleased to be represented at the Smart City Expo World Congress with various projects, impulses and participations, in order to make the Morgenstadt initiative even better known and to share our previous findings with the Smart City Community".

npw / ou