The Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) journey will have Porto as a mentor city

The European Commission and the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) want to shape over 120 cities into the cities of tomorrow and Porto is a mentor city of the initiative.

Through the "100 Intelligent Cities Challenge" project the European Commission will support the implementation of innovation strategies of circa 124 cities and Porto is one of the 10 European cities to have been selected as a mentor city, alongside Barcelona, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Singapore, among others.

The European Commission has already selected over 120 cities that will be granted tailored support and which include Rome, Cork, Sofia, Zagreb, just to mention a few, and two other Portuguese cities, Valongo and Guimarães, which will work with the mentor cities towards the development of their action plans.

The initiative is promoted by the European Commission and its fundamental goal is to support European cities in areas as mobility, energy transition, the training and qualification of human resources, crisis management, health and safety.

The work developed will be based on technology and digital transformation and the main goal is to help promote a more sustainable, liveable and socially-responsible society.

The programme will last 30 months and includes over 100 days of joint action work between both mentees and mentor cities.

Porto Digital Association will coordinate Porto's participation, under the Municipality's strategy of developing the city's technological infrastructure, namely planned investments for the expansion of the optical fibre network, Porto. Free Wi-Fi, which in 2019 powered over 1.3 million devices, and also the investments in the areas of decision support tools based on data collection. This action by Porto Digital is all the more relevant in the context of knowledge sharing regarding intelligent cities' economic breakthroughs, namely startup opportunity enhancement.

This role has been delivered in the framework of several projects led by Porto Digital, for example the memorandum signed in February 2020 in Porto, which took place on occasion of the Cities Forum organised by the European Commission, and supported by the Municipality of Porto. 

The memorandum "Join, Boost and Sustain", of which the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, is one of the ambassadors, gathers dozens of mayors from all Europe around the goal of creating social value based on technological solutions for cities, and which is one of the basis for the work that will be carried out.

By taking part in this initiative, Porto will share the work it has been developed and further new collaboration opportunities with municipalities that have been at the forefront of digital transformation in Europe.

The bet on digital transformation is one of the pillars for the development defined by the European Commission, not only amid the Covid-19 pandemic mitigation measures, but above all, towards an economic recovery and future growth.  

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