Sustainability, global disruptions and the America's Cup, the protagonists of Smart Ports 2022

Innovation and the future of the port sector will be discussed at this year's edition of Smart Ports: Piers of the Future, which will be held on 15, 16 and 17 November to coincide with the Smart City Expo World Congress. The fourth edition of this initiative led by the Port of Barcelona, which returns to an in-person format, will bring together the world's leading experts in port sector innovation.

Port of Barcelona president Damià Calvet and Director of Innovation and Business Strategy Emma Cobos today presented the fourth edition of the Smart Ports: Piers of the Future congress, involving some of the most prominent ports in the field of innovation: Antwerp-Bruges, Busan, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Montreal and Rotterdam, which will discuss their flagship projects.

Smart Ports: Piers of the Future will this year discuss five key elements in innovation and the future of the port sector grouped under the acronym PORTS - Partnership, Oceans, Resilience, Technology and Start-ups. Using these cross-cutting elements, top-level experts from the port sector will discuss current issues such as decarbonisation, the search for alternative fuels, problems in supply chains or the impact that the 37th America's Cup will have on Barcelona in 2024.

This edition of the event will also include the participation of the ports of Ashdod (Israel), Vancouver (Canada) and Gothenburg (Sweden), which will present their experiences in digital transformation and innovation. Furthermore, this year Gothenburg will join as an official member of Smart Ports: Piers of the Future, in which it will participate as a full member from the next edition of the congress.

The president of the Port of Barcelona emphasised that “the main objective is to reach more people, place the citizen at the heart of the dialogue and connect with technological start-ups, institutions and universities.” Damià Calvet explained that “Smart Ports is held within the Smart City Expo World Congress and we work together very closely because Barcelona’s is the most successful smart city congress in the world and provides a unique meeting point for the entire ecosystem involved in transforming cities to make them more inclusive, better for people”.

In this connection, Damià Calvet recalled that “port cities can only be smart cities if they have a smart port and through this initiative, we are shining a spotlight on the efforts being made by the world's main ports to become more efficient and more competitive. But we also aim to integrate more sustainably in our urban environments, increasing the social, economic and environmental contribution we make to local communities.”

Emma Cobos, Director of Innovation and Business Strategy at the Port of Barcelona, emphasised that most of the seven projects to be presented this year “make reference to the new digital roles that are arising in ports around technology.” In relation to the Port's presence at the Smart City Expo World Congress, Ms Cobos emphasised that “we want to learn what cities are doing to be more inclusive and sustainable, but we also want to have a voice, because ports are an essential part of cities.”

The Port of Barcelona will also take advantage of the showcase offered by the Smart City Expo World Congress to present three of the innovation projects in which it participates or collaborates. These will be the EU-funded Creators project, which aims to foster the creation of energy communities such as the one that will be located at the Fishermen's wharf, and Techlog, which seeks to promote technological transfer between institutions and companies in the port sector in the Mediterranean. Finally, the GuideMe tool, which seeks to optimise cruise passenger traffic in a sustainable way and which has received funding from the Ports 4.0 programme, will also be unveiled.

Smart Ports: Piers of the Future will be held as part of the Smart City Expo World Congress and all the sessions can be followed in person from the stage in the Gran Via area of Fira de Barcelona, both those that will be held live in this space like those that will be broadcast from the set of Smart Ports: Piers of the future. Furthermore, just like last year, all the sessions can be followed on a live stream on: smartports.tv. The previous editions were extremely well attended: Smart Ports 2021 had over 6,000 unique viewers and received over 20,000 views from 94 countries.