Smart Cities Week moved online amid COVID-19 crisis

The Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand (SCCANZ) has decided to transform its planned Smart Cities Week Australia 2020 event into a series of online collaborations in light of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

While the event, originally scheduled for late August, will include a one-day networking opportunity, the remaining events will be curated as a series of online activities.

These activities will be held over a period starting in April and ending in November. The one-day networking day will be held as a celebration of the winners of the National Smart Cities Awards on 12 November.

The program will commence with an online project that will address the COVID-19 pandemic, according to SCCANZ Executive Director Adam Beck.

“Today’s announcement of a ‘new-look’ Smart Cities Week Australia actually starts with a valuable opportunity for cities to engage in our first online project planning process — preparing a COVID-19 Mitigation Roadmap,” he said.

“As an organisation with an international footprint and robust digital infrastructure, we are in the unique position to have our staff and partners all over the world contribute to our new online components of Smart Cities Week Australia. We are looking forward to facilitating this high-value ‘cities helping cities’ approach.”

Beck further added that the National Smart Cities Awards are still on track for launching next week. “These are the nation’s leading smart cities awards and we cannot wait to see the leadership projects and policies that will be submitted,” he said.

The remaining schedule of online activities will be posted to the Smart Cities Week Australia website in the coming weeks.

Philip Bane, Global Managing Director of the Smart Cities Council, added that “cities are looking for us to respect their situation and respond with empathetic, action-oriented programs. SCCANZ’s package of curated events and activities that provide for remote action, followed by some strategic in-person networking, is a fresh approach and keeps our cities moving forward in a positive manner.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Eugenio Marongiu