URBIS – The Smart Cities Meetup, a Czech fair focused on the topic of Smart Cities, brought together dozens of companies and experts from various fields that presented their innovative solutions for municipalities and cities. The topic of participation was also addressed – Participation Factory not only became one of the official partners of the event, but anyone interested in participatory processes could also listen to our panel discussion on participation during the main program or simply stop by our exhibition stand to discuss our work or their own projects.
At the beginning of June, we joined the three-day fair in Brno, URBIS – The Smart Cities Meetup. More than 80 companies gathered in the Brno Exhibition Centre with their innovative projects and solutions that aim to help municipalities in their further development and improve citizens’ quality of life. From electric mobility and car sharing to smart energy solutions, the products and services on display were truly diverse. Among other exhibitors, there were also Participation Factory representatives. Everyone who visited us during the three days could learn about what participation is, how participatory planning works, and in which projects and areas participation is most often used.
We were very excited to see such great interest in participatory planning from all the visitors and other exhibitors. Through individual conversations and questions we understood that participation is undoubtedly seen as a necessary part of building smart cities. Implementing innovative and smart solutions in towns and cities to actually help where it is needed and make life easier in a given locality requires listening to the needs and opinions of citizens and key stakeholders and setting up a dialogue with them. Only in this way can innovative solutions be effective and have the greatest benefit. This is why participatory planning should be at the heart of developing the smart cities. Representatives of local governments from different parts of Europe, namely the Balkan countries and Ukraine, were also present. Our conversations with representatives of Ukrainian cities confirmed the importance of participation also for the post-war reconstructions.
The fact that it can’t simply be done without participation was also demonstrated during the conference part of the event. The event offered visitors a varied programme of discussion panels and presentations by experts on the topics of public administration, energy, climate and mobility. Our colleagues Anna Wien and Tomáš Rákos prepared a discussion panel on the topic of participation. They not only moderated the whole panel, but also boosted the discussion with short presentations focused on important areas of participatory planning.
Visitors had the opportunity to learn during the discussion panel more about why it is important to approach participation systematically and what is a role of a participation coordinator, how participation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia compares to other countries, and what are the possibilities of using digital tools for e-participation. Experts from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who have experience with participatory planning in various projects, accepted the invitation to our discussion panel. We would like to thank Milan Brlík, Alexandra Suchalová, Jana Svobodová, Dagmar Peřinová, Ondřej Švrček and Marek Koníř for joining our discussion panel and for sharing their views on various aspects of participation.
We believe that the event was beneficial to all who had an opportunity to stop by the Brno Exhibition Centre. We thank the organizers for an amazing event and great programme, and we are already looking forward to its next edition.
If you are also interested in the topic of participation and are thinking about incorporating participatory methods into your projects, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@participationfactory.com.