The forum collected the best speakers from the following most technological countries in the world: the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the USA, England, Germany

The Fifth International Kyiv Smart City Forum 2020 was conducted online for the first time on an innovative platform, bringing together 10,000 participants, twice as many as last year. The forum brought together the world's leading experts on the development of smart cities and the introduction of new technologies in the lives of residents.

"For the first time in Ukraine, such a large-scale event was conducted. We have developed a unique online platform that allows you to transfer all the advantages of offline conferencing online. The platform contained a virtual exhibition area where partner companies demonstrated their technological solutions through 3D video tours. At the same time, it was possible to watch videos, listen to reports, ask questions, and communicate with each other in chats" said the co-organizer of the forum, an expert on smart city technologies, a representative of the NGO Smart City Hub, Yuri Nazarov.

The forum collected the best speakers from the following most technological countries in the world: the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the USA, England, Germany. Experts presented real cases and recommendations on technologies that help businesses in crises.

Opening the event, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhaylo Fedorov noted that large cities will be key in the future, so the state must build powerful infrastructure projects for their development.

"We want to build the most comfortable state in Europe in three years in terms of human-business interaction with the state. To do this, we need to digitize all public services, teach people basic digital literacy, and cover the country with Internet infrastructure, "said Mykhaylo Fedorov.

The speaker from the Netherlands - chief architect, urban planner, founder and director of TARR - Smart City Strategy Tom van Armand said that in the Netherlands, social distance is monitored with the help of artificial intelligence.

"Cities have never been planned in such a way that people maintain social distance. So now we need to somehow manage the gathering of people, monitor the crowd in real-time, monitor the "hot spots". We have used the existing camera infrastructure to rely on solutions offered by artificial intelligence. We treat images responsibly without violating the standards of coding and personal information. With the help of digital video, we see problem areas and install fuses to prevent the virus from spreading,”said Tom van Armand.

Ramon Ferry Tormo, head of Smart City in Valencia, spoke about an open government data portal with more than 100 different components in his city. 

“This portal operates at the national level, all data sets are available and actively used by our citizens. We also have a geoportal, sensors for the analysis of various activities, such as public transport, waste management, environmental emissions, etc., "said Tormo.

Charles Reed Anderson, the founder of CRA & Associates (IoT & Smart Cities), a member of the GO SMART Advisory Board, spoke about the need to control hazardous emissions. According to him, the global trend is a green building and the world's largest cities are beginning to understand that the crisis is a good time to start implementing something environmentally friendly.

According to Anderson, the current crisis creates additional opportunities.

"We live in interesting times when cities, companies, and industries spend a lot of money on innovation. For example, cities are beginning to realize that the crisis is a good time to start implementing something environmentally friendly, and we see a new trend in green building in Asia and Australia. We need to be prepared for the next waves of COVID, and most likely we will have to get used to the fact that new technologies track our movements and contacts. It will be an additional wave of innovation, and we have to do it to protect everyone. The next 20 months will be crazy, but it will create fantastic additional opportunities, "- concluded Charles Reed Anderson.

Yuri Nazarov confirmed that investments in the smart city will increase every year.

"Meanwhile, we see that about $ 400 billion is spent on smart city projects because it is already a necessity, things needed for implementation, and in 2025 this amount will be about 800 billion, and maybe more. That is, every year the market increases by 18-20%. More and more modern information technologies will be used in cities. And we must understand what these technologies are and implement them in Ukrainian cities, "Yuriy Nazarov said.

According to him, unmanned vehicles, artificial intelligence in medicine, drones and cybersecurity elements, augmented reality in education, "smart homes", various sensors to ensure the quality of life will soon become commonplace.

The headliner of the forum was the founder of Facebook Live, American entrepreneur Randy Zuckerberg. According to her, the main principle of smart cities is to create environments where people can share ideas, even those that seem crazy.

Zuckerberg named the main qualities for entrepreneurs who want to survive the crisis and scale their business. You should not be afraid to go beyond comfort, be able to hear "no" and be able to present yourself despite the fear of the public.

The high level of organization of the forum was ensured by its partners. Title partner - Visa, innovation partner - Vodafone, premium partners - Cisco, ERC, IT-Integrator, technology partner - ELKO Ukraine, and Lenovo. Also among the partners of Kyiv Smart City Forum Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Caparol Ukraine, Logitech, Asbis, Ideas First, FDI, Athena KOM GmbH.