The Hebei Digital Education Center in China and the Findeter initiative from Colombia also awarded
The city of Peterborough (UK), the Hebei Digital Education Center (China) and the Findeter initiative (Colombia) are the winners of the World Smart City Awards granted every year by the Smart City Expo World Congress, the summit for smart cities organized by Fira de Barcelona which is currently taking place in the Catalan capital. The awards were presented on thursday afternoon at a ceremony attended by representatives of the cities and companies taking part in the event.
The city of Peterborough is one of the five urban labs in which the projects of the UK Future City initiative are being developed and won the World Smart City Award in the category of City. The British city's firm commitment to become the environmental capital in the United Kingdom, along with the fact that it was the first town to apply circular economy strategies together with a model of citizen involvement in designing its urban convinced the awards jury.
Project Award
The Hebei Digital Education Centre in the city of Shijiazhuang (Hebei province, China) won the Project category for its commitment to modernizing education through community learning and the development of new tools based on Big Data analysis. The Center has developed a platform of services for Cloud-based education in one of the least-developed region of China which has also entailed the adoption of new technologies.
Innovative Idea Award
In the Innovative Initiative category, the winner was Findeter, the acronym for Regional Development Financing, a bank for developing sustainable infrastructures in Colombia. This initiative currently has 1,838 projects ongoing in 320 municipalities in areas such as housing, transport infrastructures and the promotion of technology, and anticipates investing more than $10 billion over the next four years to improve public services and boost the region's economy.
A jury of seven international experts evaluated the 265 candidates from 52 countries and chose the projects that most stood out for their endeavours to transform both their cities and the services offered to their citizens in the most innovative and sustainable way.
