In November 2022, the SME4SMARTCITIES consortium went to the Smart City Expo World Congress which took place in Barcelona. The consortium partners took this conference as an opportunity to capitalize the results achieved so far in the project. Furthermore, considering the international dimension of the conference, the consortium invited the SMEs that are developing solutions to the local challenges, to take part and present and explain their solutions to the audience.

During the event, the consortium prepared a survey so the event’s participants could evaluate the different project solutions. The results were better than expected as 72,7% of people surveyed shown interest to collaborate with the solutions’ developers. As an example, we have PARK4DIS, an SME who aimed to demonstrate the transversality of the solution and its high scalability. Some of the opportunities that have arisen for this SME are future expansion in Holland and Italy.

Furthermore, on one hand, the SME YNSAT, realised the necessity of its solutions, as there is an increasing demand of satellite data but on the other hand, during the event they realised the scarce offer to develop services based on satellite data. This SME got some interesting opportunities for collaborating in other European projects as well as the rest of project’s SMEs.

Another result of the survey was that more than 40% from the surveyed people were interested in the “Cool City” solution. This solution aims to get people to know the increasing problem of heating islands because this represents a real and increasing issue in more and more cities nowadays. The main factor that caught the attention of the visitors was the level of involvement of the different parties, from citizens to public authorities.

In addition, most of the people surveyed considered that the solutions presented will contribute to a better development of sustainable Smart Cities, being this a fundamental factor for future projects with new regulations coming forward.

In general, all the present SMEs were able to establish contacts with other companies that allowed them to forge the basis for possible alliances, as well as to determine the position of their solutions in the market with respect to other competitors.

Follow the Facebook page of the SME4SMARTCITIES project, and view the testimonials prepared by the SMEs during the Smart City Expo World Congress.