Catalonia’s Smart Region Strategy

The Spanish region of Catalonia has been marketing itself as a smart region for many years. They’ve been putting a lot of effort into it, with the Smart Catalonia Strategy, the Open Data portal, and its capital Barcelona, known as one of Europe’s tech hubs, piloting and deploying numerous smart city solutions in smart parking, lighting, and in the past years, even a digital twin. However, the city and region have struggled to maintain this status. Politics got in the way and the previous Barcelona mayor, Ada Colau, wanted to rely less on technology, taking some steps back in smart city solutions. This was sort of a blow to the industry. But, with new leadership, both at city and regional levels, a new revival of smart cities seems to be on the horizon.

In this video we interview Maria Galindo, Catalonia’s new Secretary for Digital Policy, to discuss the region’s smart strategy, what they’ll focus on and how they plan to make it happen.