The first international online forum Smart Cities Moscow had 86 speakers from Russia, China, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, the United States, Sweden, and others, while more than 193,000 people participated in the panel discussions and sessions.
“Recent years have especially shown how important it is to develop the IT infrastructure of cities and create online services focused on the daily needs of city dwellers. Synchronization and joint efforts will make megacities even more sustainable, smart and comfortable for living,” Eduard Lysenko, Head of the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow, said of the event
According to Juwang Zhu, director of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Division of Public Institutions and Digital Government, there is a pressing need for creating smart cities.
“This is very important: to encourage cities to exchange practices, to develop digitalization with the whole world, so that there would be more and more smart cities,” Zhusaid said.
He said that the greatest benefit of using new technologies was seen by countries during the fight against the pandemic.
The business program of the forum consisted of 15 sessions divided into three main directions: “Smart City Infrastructure and Technologies”, “Smart City for Life”, and “Sustainable Development of Smart City”. Some of the topics that were discussed by the experts were digital solutions in transport, urban planning, tourism, ecology, energy, and other sectors important for the cities.
Additional sessions were devoted to piloting 5G networks, application of artificial intelligence in urban processes, and big data analysis for urban development planning.
