Smart City Leaders’ Talk on ‘Safe Smart Cities and Climate Frustration’
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Description
| The Smart City Leaders’ Talk on ‘Safe Smart Cities and Climate Frustration’ at the WSIS+20 High-level Events week, on 8 July 2025 at 14:00-15:00 CEST, discusses the paradox of smart cities facing challenges of climate change.
This high-level debate will enlighten opportunities Smart Cities bring to development and ways to overcome the limitations local leaders continue to face in disaster risk reduction. It elaborates on how the vision and expectations of the youth can be incorporated. The event aims to discuss the questions of people-centered, climate resilient smart city development and the necessary immediate actions to mitigate risks:
A people-centered smart city approach means finding answers to peoples’ needs – from safety to sustainability. Participating leaders contribute to the debate highlighting different aspects of smartness, including but not limited to advancing climate adaptation and resilience, protection, promotion and fulfillment of human rights, strengthening social inclusion, and achieving the relevant sustainable development goals. |
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Date: 8 July 2025 |
Speakers:
- Tomas Lamanauskas, Deputy Secretary-General, ITU
- Johan Stander, Senior Director of the Services Department, WMO
- Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris (France) and President of AIMF (TBC)
- Fatiha El Moudni, Mayor of Rabat (Morocco) and President of Metropolis (TBC)
- Yousef Al Shawarbeh, Mayor of Amman (Jordan)
- Umar Nasir Usman, Deputy Mayor of Abuja Municipal Area Council (Nigeria)
- Jeong-kee Kim, Secretary General, WeGO, Seoul (Republic of Korea)
- Nadia Verjee, Executive Director, Expo City Dubai (UAE)
- Nicholas You, Executive Director, Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation (China)
Moderated by Andras Szorenyi, Global Cities Hub
Outcome:
The WSIS+20 High-Level Events is the very place for creating a platform for mayors and city leaders to brainstorm and discuss the contributions of smart city developments to overcome emerging urban challenges. Smart City Leaders Talk would be the adequate framework for forward-looking thematic discussion to share best practices on smart city development projects that incorporate both goals of achieving sustainable development and fulfilling the duty of safety and security for the inhabitants.
The expected outcome of the debate is a list of recommendations based on the assessment of different ways to better include disaster risk reduction and extreme weather event mitigation in smart city development efforts to create a safer environment for future generations.
Other Global Cities Hub events at WSIS+20 and AI for Good Summit
AI & virtual worlds: Building the cities and governments of tomorrow
The discussion on the ‘AI & virtual worlds: Building the cities and governments of tomorrow’, on 9 July 2025 at 09:00-12:00 CEST, brings together governments, cities, and experts to explore how AI-powered virtual worlds can empower communities and tackle global challenges. Speakers are invited to highlight different aspects of using digital tools and AI in their cities, including but not limited to for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and their expectations towards the development and regulation of a Citiverse.
Both the AI for Good Summit and the WSIS+20 High-Level Events are taking place from 7-11 July 2025 in Geneva with the participation of heads of international organizations, ministers, experts, and c-suite executives. It is the very place for mayors and city leaders to discuss emerging urban challenges of digitalization, including the Citiverse and share expectations on regulatory needs and policy development.
Speakers:
- Martin Brynskov, Founding Board Director, Open & Agile Smart Cities network
- Prof. Pilar Orero, Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain)
- Dmitry Ontoev, Advisor, Minister of the Government of Moscow (Russia) and Head, Department of Information Technologies of Moscow (DIT)
- Jeong-kee Kim, Secretary General, WeGO
- Lise Nicoud, Deputy Mayor, City of Évian (France)
Moderated by Kamelia Kemileva, Global Cities Hub
Leaving No One Behind in the Citiverse
The session ‘Leaving No One Behind in the Citiverse’ on 8 July 2025 at 16:00-17:00 CEST will discuss from a top-down approach the challenges, opportunities, and impact we face when designing a Citiverse for all citizens, leaving no one behind. From planning, standardization to examples from two cities Valencia (Spain) and Tampere (Finland) will offer concrete cases on how they are looking at digital inclusion.
The ITU CitiVerse Initiative serves as a global platform that aims at fostering open, interoperable and innovative virtual worlds that can be used safely and with confidence by people, businesses and public services in cities across the world. It is also the avenue for developing normative frameworks addressing principles, enablers, and governance for applying metaverse solutions in cities. Cities, as hubs of human activity, are challenged by many issues. When building digital cities we’d better avoid some already known and identified human interaction barriers.
Speakers:
- Dr. Hyoung Jun Kim, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), (Republic of Korea)
- Dr. Okan Geray, Senior Digital City Strategy Advisor, Dubai Digital Authority, (UAE)
- Dr. Yong-Jick Lee, Managing Director, Center for Accessible ICT (Republic of Korea)
- Prof. Pilar Orero, Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain)
- Teppo Raitkunen, Executive Director, City of Tampere (Finland)
- Samia Chelbi, Unreal Authorized Instructor and Ecosystem Innovator, DigiArtLivingLAb by NET-INFO
- Cristina Bueti, ITU
Moderated by Kamelia Kemileva, Global Cities Hub
Registration
For further information on participation (in person or online) and on the programme, visit the WSIS+20 website or the AI for Good website.
Are you ready to share best practices and engage as a speaker?
Do not hesitate to contact us at info@globalcitieshub.org.
Background information
What is WSIS+20?
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a 2 phased summit organized in 2003 in Geneva, and in 2005 in Tunisia designed to tackle the challenges raised by information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the national, regional, and international levels. Since then, the goal is to build a people-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented information society where everyone can create, access, use, and share information. The summit’s mandate has been followed up by High-Level Forums organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in different instances like multi-stakeholder segments, and other pivotal events on the mentioned grounds.
This year it will have both WSIS+20 High-Level Event in July 2025, and a high-level meeting in December 2025 at the General Assembly following Resolution A/70/125. This will ensure the input and participation of all stakeholders to identify both successes and remaining challenges on ICTs.
What is AI for Good summit?
AI for Good is the UN leading platform to leverage the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive progress toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was established in 2017 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with the Government of Switzerland and in partnership with over 40 UN agencies. Its flagship annual Global Summit is held in Geneva, along with regional impact events across the globe.
The summit is a platform for advancing AI in service of sustainable development. The goal is to identify practical applications of AI, scale solutions for global impact, and accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs. The topics discussed at the summit are also influential to global standard setting processes led by ITU.