Vienna, Austria - 3-4 September 2019
Vienna, 3-4 September 2019 – Organized jointly by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Finance Center for South-South Cooperation (FCSSC), “BRIDGE for Cities 4.0 – Connecting Cities through the New Industrial Revolution” took place in Vienna from 3 to 4 September.
The annual event, focused on the impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the role of technology-driven innovation in facilitating the transition towards smart city development, attracted around 800 Participants from over 100 countries. Besides high-level plenaries on particular aspects of the 4IR (urban innovation hubs, circular economy, smart mobility), a Mayors Roundtable led to the adoption of a Declaration of Intent by 15 Cities expressing strong interest to work with UNIDO.
In this framework, UNIDO ITPO Italy provided its support during the bilateral meeting between the Port of Trieste and the representatives of the Chengdu Governmental Delegation, which has been organized with the aim of discussing future projects and fostering collaboration between Sichuan Province and FVG Region.
In particular, Chengdu is interested to extend the operations of their regular freight trains linking Chengdu with Italy. It was also an occasion to introduce the Sustainable Development Port City Forum – “From the port gate to the city port hub” - “The Trieste Initiative”: connecting port cities along BRI to foster innovation to be held in Trieste on March 2020.
UNIDO ITPO Italy already supported FVG Region and the Port of Trieste at the 3rd Bridge for Cities, during which some of representatives from the Port of Trieste had the opportunity to illustrate their lessons learned about how to make Trieste a sustainable city, through a urban-port-industrial symbiosis.
Furthermore during the Bridge for Cities exhibition, UNIDO ITPO Italy facilitated the participation of Ponics, an Italian company who developed a model of sustainable urban farms, using aquaponics systems that combine plant growth and fish farming.