During the pandemic, many cities have reinvented themselves to become more livable and sustainable. The concept of smart cities has gained global attraction in raising awareness about the need to utilize technology to transform cities to be greener, more affordable, inclusive, and sustainable.
The Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) is one of the largest smart city events in the world dedicated to fostering smart cities and tracking sustainable urban initiatives. This year the conference was a hybrid event with full day of broadcasted events, workshops, panel discussion and side sessions that were also streamed virtually. This year marked the 10th anniversary of SCEWC and focused COVID-19 recovery by exploring key themes such as enabling technologies, energy, environment, inclusion, infrastructure, governance, and others.
The World Bank has a long history of collaborating with SCEWC and World Bank Tokyo Development Learning Center (TDLC) organized a virtual side event on November 16th. The side session was held in collaboration with Smart City Institute of Japan (SCI-J), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Global Smart Cities Partnership Program (GSCP) of the World Bank.
In addition to the side event, Sameh Wahba, Global Director of the World Bank’s Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice participated as a key panelist speaker on the theme of “Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Urban Challenges.”