The Record - Issue 19: Winter 2020

28 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om MAR K E TWATCH : E V ENT H I GH L I GHT Smart City Live 2020 The virtual Smart City Live event in November 2020 saw a wide range of expert speakers addressing the future of modern cities. Over the following pages we profile some of the organisations that participated in the event T he first ever virtual Smart City Live event in November 2020 brought together key players and global institutions to discuss the key challenges that cities are facing beyond the short-term context of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The current situation will undoubtedly leave its mark on cities and the way they function, but it will do it for good, helping us to build metropolises capable of better delivering the services and resources its inhabitants need and ready to respond to new threats,” said Ugo Valenti, director of Smart City Expo World Congress. “Smart City Live is our contribution to this collective effort.” Julia Glidden, corporate vice president of worldwide public sector at Microsoft, spoke about what it might mean to live in an intelligent urban environment, as a necessity for now, rather than a vision of the future. “The challenges ahead are enormous,” she said. “We will not go back to a world where services are not accessible digitally, but we have to maintain a human touch, because we need human contact.” Lutz Heuser CEO of [ui!] Urban Software Institute “Following the vision of the Open Urban Platforms from the European Innovation Partnership of Smart Cities and Communities, [ui!] Urban Software Institute developed a real-time sensor data platform called [ui!] UrbanPulse. The platform – which we presented at Smart City Live – combines the many information sources of a city to better understand and react to the city’s needs.” Pascal Martinez Director of digital cities business development at Bentley Systems “With over 70 per cent of the population expected to live in cities by 2050, government officials are investing in new technologies to fast-track their planning decisions. Microsoft and Bentley Systems joined forces to help city stakeholders make more informed decisions using a city-scale digital twin platform called OpenCities. It delivers realistic, large-scale visualisation of cities and can simulate the impact of projects or disasters, to improve city resilience.” Jan Schoenig Director of smart cities, logistics and mobility at Siemens Advanta Solutions “At this year ’s gathering, we highlighted our city data modelling solution, the MindSphere City Graph. Developed by Siemens Advanta, Microsoft and MindSphere, it helps cities to become more sustainable and enhance the quality of life by monitoring the city’s infrastructure through a digital twin platform.”