The Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories International Conference (SSCt 2021) took place this week. From Tuesday 27th to Thursday 29th April, we were able to enjoy interesting presentations, workshops and the latest research in the field of smart cities and territories.

SSCt2021 was organised by the BISITE research group of the University of Salamanca, together with Texas A&M University in Qatar, the AIR Institute and the IoT Digital Innovation Hub. An event that brought together leading specialists and researchers who are applying new technologies for the transformation of our cities.

Research and innovation in smart cities

Ali Al Kuwari was the conference’s Honor Speaker. Al Kuwari is acting CEO of Msheireb Properties, responsible for the development and implementation of the strategic and operational plans of the design and implementation department. During his presentation he talked about his work on the project to transform the old city centre of Doha into a smart and dynamic city, with sustainable and user-oriented solutions, becoming a hub for living, leisure and business.

We also enjoyed an informative speech by Asmaa Al-hemaidi, project coordinator at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, who works directly on the Qatar National Smart Digital Transformation Programme (TASMU).

Al-hemaidi presented different projects that are being carried out regarding the digitisation of different sectors in the country. In this regard, she described the TASMU Digital Farmer Community solution, which provides localised agricultural information and crop-specific advice.

During the event we also had the opportunity to listen to exceptional talks by Tan Yigitcanlar, Director of the Australia-Brazil Smart City Research and Practice Network, Eduardo Martínez Gil, Director of INDRA’s Smart City Centre of Excellence and Enrique Díaz-Plaza Sanz, Director of Business Development at IBM.

Digital transformation, smart mobility, Blockchain, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and the application of technological solutions such as Deep Intelligence, were the main topics of the presentations throughout the conference.

I am proud to have been part of the organisation of this conference. This is just the beginning of big projects that will transform today’s cities into the cities of the future.

In the next few days, I will post a short video with the main presentations from the conference.

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.