The World Bank organized the seminar “Smart Cities for All: How Can the Developing Cities of Today Become the Smart Cities of Tomorrow?” at its central offices in Washington on 5 and 6 March 2012. The event featured 36 speakers and drew over 100 participants from international organizations, city networks, tech companies, consultancies, universities, political representatives and the media.

70% of the population will live in urban areas by around the year 2030, so big cities are facing important and urgent challenges to address these mass movements of people coming mainly from rural areas.

A number of different proposals and opportunities were presented over two days to address this new scenario, in which evolving toward Smart Cities will be fundamental for development in the direction of sustainability and integrated solutions to urban problems. Collaboration and coordinated work by all the parties involved will be indispensable to disseminate and spread in the short term the solutions that various smart city projects are running in different cities around the world. These solutions should in any case have the participation and involvement of the public, a matter that was taken greatly into account during the discussions.