Transformation to Smart Cities: Swiss Guide & Use Cases

BCIT is proud to host a visit from Professor Vicente Carabias (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) to our Burnaby Campus. With his double role in academia (Head of Smart Cities at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)) and in the government (Smart City Responsible of the City of Winterthur), Professor Carabias is a worldleading expert in smart cities, sustainable communities and smart energy systems.

In this guest lecture, an introduction to the Swiss Smart City Guide will be provided containing three main phases in the transformation process. The concept of Smart City is perceived as expansion of system transformation. It shows how a Smart Sustainable City can be initiated and promoted with pilot projects, how a holistic strategy can be developed and how it can be established in the city on a long-term basis. Each phase is underpinned with interesting use cases, best practices and supporting approaches from Switzerland, collected through the Swiss Smart City Survey and, in particular, from Smart City Winterthur.

Professor Vicente Carabias is a Professor of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) School of Engineering and the Deputy Head of the ZHAW Institute of Sustainable Development, where he coordinates the Sustainable Energy Systems and Smart Cities research group. Prof. Vicente Carabias is also a coordinator of the ZHAW Platform Smart Cities & Regions for the implementation of Smart Sustainable Cities. Since completing his Master Studies in Environmental Sciences at the ETH Zurich in 1996, he has been involved in sustainability research, services, and teaching (Technology Foresight) at ZHAW. In addition, from 2019 on, he supports part-time the transformation of the City of Winterthur as the Smart City Responsible. The City of Winterthur was one of the first Swiss cities to adopt a Smart City strategy in 2018. He manages WinLab, the Living Lab of the City of Winterthur, which offers the systematic testing of social and technological innovations in public-private-people partnerships, and he is the contact person for WinLab collaborations in applied research and innovation development.

All are welcome, please feel free to forward to others who may be interested.