Organizers of 17,000 attendee Smart City Expo World Congress appoint TM Forum as exclusive industry partner to develop technology themes for the event

LONDON, UK — 21st September, 2017: TM Forum, the industry association driving digital business transformation of the communications industry, today announced that it has been appointed to become the exclusive industry partner for the Technology & Data track for Fira de Barcelona’s Smart City Expo World Congress. The event attracts 17,000 delegates from around the world who gather to discover the latest smart city innovations.

Through this collaboration, TM Forum will influence the agenda, act as the link between Fira de Barcelona and the industry on the specific technology topics and drive industry collaboration. The partnership recognizes TM Forum’s role in bringing together communication service providers (CSPs), vendors, cities and other governmental bodies to collaborate and innovate.

TM Forum runs a number of initiatives to bolster smart city projects and developments, under the umbrella of the Smart City Forum. These include: the City as a Platform Manifesto; Smart City Catalysts – proof-of-concept projects developed collaboratively by TM Forum members to address urban challenges – along with Smart City Hackathons; its Smart City InFocus event. It also provides associated business and technical architectures for smart cities, software tools, Open APIs, and smart city maturity and benchmark model and app.

“The global technology ecosystem, represented by TM Forum, is of critical importance for smart cities and for Smart City Expo World Congress. Digital technologies are the backbone of the cities of the future and without them urban transformation would be impossible”, said Ugo Valenti, director of Smart City Expo World Congress. “That is why this partnership provides us with new ways to reach out to more companies and innovators who are ready to play and important role in the global urban scenario ensuring that cities will be able to benefit from every technology available capable of helping them and helping us to transform into better places”, he added.

Carl Piva, VP Strategic Programs, TM Forum said:

“We’re delighted to be teaming up with the world’s leading smart city event. This provides an additional platform for our membership, where we can connect our global technology ecosystem to urban challenges around the world.” He continued: “We are creating a strong alliance between cities who wish to use technology to drive urban innovation and service providers who can make this happen”.

About Smart City Expo World Congress

Smart City Expo World Congress is the leading international event on smart cities. It brings together the leading companies in the smart urban solutions industry, the most relevant experts from around the globe and over 600 cities to share knowledge and establish new alliances and begin new joint initiatives. On 2017 it will host its 7^th edition and it will gather over 17.000 attendees, more than 600 exhibitors and over 400 experts and thought leaders.