Smart Blue City 1st Euro-Mediterranean Conference and Exhibition - 14 April 2016

Smart Urban Development and Blue Growth Opportunities for Cities, Communities and Islands in the Mediterranean Basin

The 1st Euro-Mediterranean Conference and Exhibition, dealing with "Smart Urban Development and Blue Growth opportunities for cities, communities and islands in the Mediterranean basin", aims to establish bridges among a variety of actors originating from cities and communities, industry and academia; and act as a platform for face-to-face interaction and networking in support of cities' efforts to cope with common challenges and opportunities as Mediterranean constellations in the information era. 

The focus of the Conference is primarily on coastal small and medium-sized cities and communities in the Mediterranean. These are considered as of crucial importance for a number of reasons, with the most important being: 

• The large number of such small and medium-sized cities spread across the Mediterranean coast. 
• The commonalities of the general features of such cities and communities, particularly their human scale, livability and social cohesion, conviviality of their neighborhoods, and their geographical cohesion and historical character, factors that constitute an ideal of sustainable urbanism in many ways.
• Their role as natural but also cultural heritage poles, developed by close interaction and historical bonds shared by the Mediterranean coastal cities through centuries, rendering them, among others, attractive tourist destinations at a global scale.
• Their role as nodes of interaction in the context of sea routes -ports- crossing the Mediterranean sea, rendering them commercial nodes too, while placing also additional problems and challenges that such a role implies.
• Their common destiny in respect of a number of challenges related to climate change, migration, deterioration of sea environment, austerity, water scarcity etc., which underlines the necessity of implementing smart solutions towards a more sustainable and smart profile of resource management.

Based on the multiple nature of the above presented challenges, the Conference is expected to host a variety of participants from the academia, SMEs, industry and professionals as well as decision makers, regional authorities and city representatives in order that, a fruitful dialogue among these groups to be developed and new ideas and technologies, capable of coping with key challenges, to be put at the service of urban settlements in the Mediterranean.

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Source of article Medcities