Pla Estratègic Metropolità de Barcelona Series

PEMB Series: Smart Metropolis

We call 'smart' to a vision of the metropolitan region of Barcelona, the territorial scope of the Barcelona Tomorrow process, which understands intelligence as the capacity to activate, for the sake of common progress, the different talents contained in the variety of people and institutions that are part of it, including culture, in a broad sense, as a basis that brings together knowledge, technology and skills in order to create shared knowledge. In short, a vital and diverse metropolis that emphasises culture, research and the ethical use of technology as fundamental axes for its development.

The main goal of the conference is to position the topics and the approach behind each of the three areas into which the smart metropolis topic has been broken down, and to start a debate on the challenges identified in each area based on a set of guiding questions. The ultimate purpose of the debate is twofold: to verify that the key challenges have been met (and if there are others, to identify them), and to begin to identify specific missions and projects that can be useful in meeting the different challenges.

The three theme blocks or areas identified for the smart metropolis are:

1. Innovation and search.

An innovative metropolitan region is a centre to generate and exchange knowledge and expertise, as well as to experiment, and at the same time a platform for new products and services.0 On the other hand, a metropolis must be able to innovate intelligently, prioritising the actions that are key to sustainable development. The metropolis needs to have mechanisms to promote innovative projects and actions that are focused on finding effective solutions to the major challenges it faces, such as the protection of people's health, the climate emergency or unequal societies. And we must strengthen initiatives aimed to providing citizens with the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in innovation processes and fully enjoy them.

2. Technological humanism.

Technological humanism is to put technology at the service of people in order to make the metropolis and its cities increasingly healthy and equitable. Without democratic control, digitisation processes can boost citizen surveillance of the use that large corporations make of the personal data that we disseminate online, often without being aware of it. Technological humanism is a democratic bet in the face of this threat, promoting reflection on the role of the subject and digital rights, defending freedom in the society of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

3. Culture and knowledge.

Culture is the substratum and the axis of metropolitan identity, a tool that provides citizens with the critical spirit necessary to build a fairer, more caring and committed metropolis. There is a vision of culture that understands it as the contemplation of an ancient legacy, and another that sees it as a collection of interesting and curious facts, even as a form of leisure. And culture is these two things, but also and perhaps above all, an experience of knowledge that takes us into the traditions of the past that have shaped our identity and explain the raison d'être of society, clarifying our thinking and thus empowering us as active and insightful citizens in a changing world where the boundaries between art, humanities and science are increasingly blurred.