FinCEAL coorganizes high level Smart Cities seminar in Santiago de Chile, 10th September 2014

UniPID in cooperation with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Energy Center/University of Chile and ÁgoraLab/Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, are organizing a bi-regional seminar focusing on Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation in Smart Cities, especially smart transport and energy solutions for urban areas.

UniPID – Finnish University Partnership for International Development in cooperation with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Center of Innovation in Lithium/University of Chile, CONICYT/Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research and ÁgoraLab/Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil are organizing a bi-regional seminar focusing on Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation in Smart Cities, especially smart transport and energy solutions for urban areas.

The seminar is supported by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the EU-CELAC Senior Officials' Meetings STI Working Group on ICT for Societal Challenges, co-led by The Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) and Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland together with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, as well as other relevant authorities from Chile and Finland.

The seminar invites experts on Smart Cities from industry and academia, as well as Government representatives and other stakeholders from EU and CELAC countries to present and discuss current challenges and successful practices in the implementation of Smart Cities initiatives, especially in the areas of smart transport and smart energy production and use. The seminar aims to provide a platform for developing concrete joint innovation and research cooperation initiatives.  

The objectives of the Seminar are to:

• Provide a space for different stakeholders to share their expertise and experiences related to Smart Cities in both regions;
• Identify and highlight current successful practices for mutual learning;
• Discover untapped opportunities for cooperation and establish new partnerships in Science, Technology and Innovation between the two regions;
• Strengthen the participation of the private sector from both regions in STI partnerships; as well as
• Identify new business opportunities and incentivize long term win-win commercial relations and formation of concrete new projects

We are now inviting experts from Finnish universities and research institutions to express their interest in joining the Finnish expert delegation to the event.Please contact FinCEAL LAC Project Coordinator Kajsa Ekroos (kajsa.ekroos(at)helsinki.fi) with a brief description of your expertise in the field of Smart Cities and previous experience and/or current interest in developing cooperation with Chile and other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

For more information on the event please see the Background paper.