Every year thousands of people from all over the world flock to Barcelona for the grandiose event that is Smart City Expo World Congress. This year's numbers were truly impressive: 21,331 visitors, 844 exhibitors, more than 700 cities and 400 exhibitors collectively covering 146 countries. To say that the event was a perfect opportunity to showcase PoliVisu would be an understatement! For three full days Pavel Kogut conversed with everyone who stopped by the Flemish Pavilion, which is where the project's stand was based.
Figure 1. Flanders Pavilion at SCEWC2018
This included official government delegations from Quebec and Holland, city managers, representatives of European and international projects and companies, as well as PhD students.
Figure 2. International audience at the PoliVisu stand
The engaged audience was diverse but PoliVisu managed to cater to everyone's needs. Some were naturally impressed by the technical capabilities of its tools (e.g. WebGLayer), others by the big picture that visualisations help reveal (e.g. Flanders Traffic accidents). Many also found project's "soft" aspects particularly appealing, namely its data driven policy framework (see below) and pilot scenarios.
Figure 3. The PoliVisu framework
Engagement with the audience happened on two levels: casual conversations at the booth and a more formal presentation about the project at the podium.
Figure 4. PoliVisu presentation at Flanders Pavilion
By day three of the conference PoliVisu ran out of dissemination material the team brought for the occasion, a testament to great interest that the project commands thanks to the timeliness, relevance and usefulness of its solution. With two more years to go, PoliVisu is eyeing World Congress of 2019 and 2020 as a platform for more exciting engagement and dissemination of results that will only get more impressive and advanced as the project develops. Watch this space!
Figure 5. PoliVisu dissemination material