ECONOMY

The 1st Plug & Play Restart mAI City Conference was designed in such a way as to provide answers to the following key questions, which concern all the urban authorities of Greece and not only:

• Are our cities citizen-friendly?
• Do we emphasize the needs of our city dwellers when designing an intervention?
• Are we promoting sustainable management of our local resources?
• Do we promote transparency and participatory planning in decision-making?
• Are we exploiting our cultural resources and intangible cultural heritage?
• Do we adopt new technologies in order to improve the daily life of citizens?
• Are we effectively addressing social challenges while reducing social inequalities?
• Are we fostering innovation and start-up entrepreneurship?
• Are we ensuring mobility within the urban fabric?
• Are we leveraging technological infrastructure to make our cities sustainable and smart?

The main goal was to bring all the new Municipal Authorities of the country into contact with the existing policies and with immediately applicable and functional technological solutions, in order to develop more friendly, functional, modern and safe cities. For this very reason, the theme of the Conference has been linked to both the Urban Agenda of the EU and the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN.

During the first 2 days of the Conference, delegates had the opportunity to discuss policies and initiatives at national and European level, on topics such as:

• the promotion of sustainable management of local resources,
• the promotion of transparency and participatory planning in decision-making,
• the strengthening of innovation and start-up entrepreneurship,
• the adoption of new technologies for the benefit of citizens,
• the effective treatment of all forms of urban poverty and the reduction of inequalities,
• the utilization of cultural resources and intangible cultural heritage.

On the third day, the delegates met, were informed and discussed all the applications and solutions that have been designed and implemented in the Municipality of Trikkaia (Smart Trikala applications, MEA, GiSeMi, Activage, etc.).