Nikolas Badminton on AI, Strategic Foresight, and the Future of Cities at Smart City Expo 2026

The congress program features seven core tracks: Enabling Technologies, Energy & Environment, Mobility, Governance & Economy, Living & Inclusion, Infrastructure & Building, and the Blue Economy. These sessions will examine digital transformation, artificial intelligence applied to cities, green energy, and social equity.

Housing Focus and the Inaugural HOWS Barcelona Summit

Rapid urbanization and rising populations have made access to affordable housing one of the defining challenges of our time. In response, SCEWC 2026 will host the first edition of HOWS Barcelona, a dedicated housing world summit operating within the broader conference framework.

Ugo Valenti, Director of Smart City Expo World Congress, emphasized the practical necessity of targeting residential challenges directly. According to Valenti, in an era dominated by artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and robotics, municipalities must prioritize immediate, high-impact solutions for core community needs. The housing summit will tackle urban planning, land policy, housing regulation, social and affordable housing, building innovation, and renovation, retrofit, and reuse strategies.

Additional expert voices will shape the discourse across the multi-day event. Nikolas Badminton, Chief Futurist and Think Tank leader at Futurist.com, is slated to share his vision on the future of cities. Ayumi Moore Aoki, founder of Women in Tech Global, will examine how inclusive leadership and diversity drive municipal innovation. The speaker lineup also includes Bibiana Aido of UN Women, Bilel Jamoussi of the ITU, and Chiara Corazza of the Women’s Economic Forum.

Global Exhibitors and the Terra50 Sustainability Showcase

The exhibition floor at the Gran Via venue will host a broad roster of global technology firms and public delegations. Confirmed corporate exhibitors include Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Dell Technologies, Deutsche Telekom IoT, Advantech, Arrive Group, Bright, Dahua Technology, ESRI, FCC enviro, Hanwha Vision, Lora Alliance, Silicon Highway, Smart Ports, Ubiwhere, Urbio, Veolia, and Yuan High Tech.

Alongside corporate booths, the venue will accommodate country and municipal pavilions representing Argentina, Austria, Barcelona, Belgium, Berlin, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hamburg, Italy, Japan, Las Rozas de Madrid, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Tokyo, and the USA.

A notable addition to the 2026 floor plan is “Terra50,” a dedicated exhibition space highlighting the world’s top 50 sustainability solutions in the urban field. This initiative catalogs best practices in green energy production, waste collection, and urban greening designed for replication across diverse global contexts.

Colocated Events and Coordinated Urban Innovation

SCEWC 2026 will run concurrently with several specialized congresses, reinforcing Barcelona’s position as a global meeting point for urban innovation. These parallel events include the Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress—organized jointly with EIT Urban Mobility—focused on sustainable transport paradigms, and the Tomorrow.Blue Economy, which explores ocean resource management for sustainable economic growth.

Rounding out the concurrent schedule are the Barcelona Deep Tech Summit, organized by Barcelona Activa to highlight scientific entrepreneurship and university spin-offs, and the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress.