Curitiba é a Comunidade Mais Inteligente do Mundo de 2024. O prêmio foi entregue na noite de segunda-feira (4) em Barcelona (Espanha), em evento que reuniu autoridades das sete cidades que concorriam ao título conferido pelo Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) neste ano. Assaí, no Norte do Paraná, também foi uma das finalistas deste ano.

Esta é a primeira vez em 25 anos de história do prêmio que uma cidade brasileira - e da América Latina - recebe o título conferido pelo ICF, organização global com sede em Nova York, nos Estados Unidos, e filiais no Canadá e em Taiwan, que estabeleceu o conceito de comunidade inteligente e uma das mais importantes do mundo no reconhecimento de localidades que apostam na tecnologia e inclusão digital para melhorar a vida dos cidadão.

Read more at gazzconecta.com.br.

English Translation:

Curitiba is the Smartest Community in the World of 2024. The award was presented on Monday night (4) in Barcelona (Spain), in an event that brought together authorities from the seven cities that competed for the title conferred by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) this year. Assaí, in the North of Paraná, was also one of the finalists of this year.

This is the first time in 25 years of history of the award that a Brazilian city - and in Latin America - receives the title conferred by the ICF, a global institution that established the concept of intelligent community and one of the most important in the world in the recognition of locations that bet on technology and digital inclusion to improve the lives of citizens.

Sustainable urban planning, infrastructure and improvement of essential services for the population, technological innovation, connectivity and digital transformation, training of young people and adults, support for entrepreneurship, commitment to clean energy and the establishment of an innovation ecosystem - the Pinhão Valley - were some of the points that the ICF considered fundamental for the election of the capital of Paraná as the smartest community of 2024.

With the ICF award, Curitiba becomes the only city in the world to be recognized in the three most important global awards on smart cities in just one year. In November 2023, she received the title of Smartest City in the World at the World Smart City Awards, conferred by Fira Barcelona (Spain). In October of this year, Curitiba received silver in the Human-CentriCity category at the Seoul Smart City Prize, an international smart city competition promoted by the metropolitan government of Seoul, South Korea.

These awards are added to four other international titles received by the capital throughout the year: first place in the Government Excellence Awards 2024 with the Fala Curitiba program (Arab Emirates); Pioneer Urbanism award from Bilbao Metropoli 30 (Spain); the World Green City Awards 2024 with the Urban Agriculture Program of Curitiba (Netherlands); and the Unesco 2024 award, Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoun of Dubai, for the Veredas Formativas program of continuous training of teachers of the municipal public network (France).

Since 2021, Curitiba among the finalists

Annually, the Intelligent Community Forum launches two lists with the smartest communities in the world before the community of the year election. The first, with 21 cities, serves as the basis for the definition of the seven finalists for the maximum title of the institution.

This was the fourth consecutive year in which Curitiba was among the seven smartest communities in the world, competing for the award given for the first time in 1999. Before the capital of Paraná appeared in the Top7 in 2021, Brazil was represented by Rio de Janeiro in 2015 and by Piraí (RJ) in 2005. Since 2019, the city has been part of the list of the 21 smartest communities in the world of the ICF.

This was also the first year in which Assaí was among the seven finalists for the award. In addition to the two cities in Paraná, they competed for the Coral Gables award, in Florida, and Hilliard, in Ohio, both in the United States; Durham Region, in the Ontario region, in Canada; Fredericton and New Brunswick, also in Canada; and Yunlin County, from Taiwan.