The Global Cities Team Challenge Expo was an exceptional turning point, a successful closing event for the first phase of this initiative and, at the same time, the kick-off mark for a new period of development for the GCTC.
More than 2000 attendees and exhibitors joined the Expo live in Austin, Texas. The participants and attendees had the opportunity to hear from keynote speakers and participate on in-depth discussions and panels addressing the present and future challenges of smart cities and the role of synergetic relationships between the cities and the innovative IoT technologies that are spreading and scaling worldwide.

The Expo gathered Federal and Mayoral delegates, industry representatives as well as international and corporate partners, all being part of this celebration of the rich and multifaceted ecosystem that is growing around the collaborative venture to form project teams –the GCTC Action Clusters– . FIWARE’s participation as a Partner of GCTC started last year and now, also a number of our own partners and startups, are part of the Action Clusters.

FIWARE was present at the GCTC Expo as the host for some of those startups and projects, which had the chance to present their digital solutions at the event. Also, FIWARE has been invited to participate in the IES City Framework and joined its mid-project workshop in Austin. The development of a consensus Framework for Smart City Architectures that will grant portability and interoperability among the new cities’ applications and services, is an objective that is shared with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that promotes the GCTC and with other relevant projects, like the Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC) Initiative, for which FIWARE is providing the much needed technological standards.

The GCTC Expo was also a great opportunity fully in line with the main goal of the FIWARE Mundus Team: to promote the adoption of FIWARE technologies, the enlargement of the Open Source community worldwide and strengthen of the cooperation between cities and companies from Europe and the USA, with FIWARE as the link to ease that joining effort. The Mundus Team pointed this event as a “turning point to accelerate the take-up of FIWARE in the USA and in other countries represented in the GCTC”.

Now that the 2016 Expo is behind us, we are all looking forward to Phase Two of the Global City Teams Challenge. FIWARE and the increasing number of participants in this great venture will be mainly focusing on the deployment and the demonstration of the real impact of new solutions. As Sokwoo Rhee –Associate Director of Cyber-Physical Systems Program, NIST– has put it “We will be able to see how the efforts of 90+ teams can make a real difference in our communities over the next 12 months. Stay tuned!”

We have assembled a video-album with some of the interesting interviews that took place at the GCTC Expo 2016, with startups, teams, representatives and other partners.

FIWARE AT THE GCTC’16 – FIWARE MUNDUS – Promoting the Adoption of FIWARE Worldwide from FIWARE on Vimeo.