At the invitation of the European Commission and the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC), Innovative Sofia took part in the panel session “Digital Transition of Cities and Communities – What is Next in the Post-COVID Era?” during the General Assembly of the EIP-SCC Marketplace. The forum was held as a hybrid event at the Urbis Smart City Fair in Brno, the Czech Republic.

This year’s General Assembly featured high-level speakers that:

• put a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities facing cities following the COVID-19 experience
• discussed European efforts to deliver a sustainable urban transition
• continued a dialogue on upscaling and replication of Smart City solutions. 

The event included unique and interactive sessions aimed to support cities and projects working to boost their Smart City implementation, focusing on issues such as citizen engagement, business models, financing, the role of smart energy systems and more.

The “Digital Transition of Cities and Communities” session emphasized on the post-COVID-19 scenario and focused on how various European initiatives have made big strides in moving towards interoperable cross-sector digital infrastructure for the cities and communities. 

Nadia Soultanova, Director “Digitalization, Innovation and Investments” at Innovative Sofia, presented the participation of Sofia in the European Commission’s Digital Cities Challenge and 100 Intelligent Cities Challenge programmes,the Digital Transition Partnership (Urban Agenda for the EU), as well as our work on the development of the Digital Transformation Strategy for Sofia.

The EIP-SCC Marketplace is a platform by the European Commission that engages cities, industry and financiers in interest matching activities, leading to project design and investments that help European cities become smarter. 

Six thematic Action Clusters operate in the EIP-SCC Marketplace platform – these are assemblies of partners committing to work on specific issues related to smart cities, by sharing the knowledge and expertise with their peers, giving added-value to their national and local experience and identifying gaps that need to be fulfilled at European level.

You can explore how the EIP-SCC Marketplace can help you launch your Smart City solutions by browsing the brochure available here.