Smart City Week 2011: Declaration of The New Smart City!
Building Up Cities for Safe, Sustainable and Efficient Cities

The image of “Smart City” is safe and sustainable city has been created. Movement of “Smart City” modeling has been actively developed on global scale. Faced with the task of rebuilding cities devastated by the Eastern Japan Earthquake, Japan has launched the introduction of Smart City. In Europe the question of what constitutes a Smart City is now being reexamined, and redefining of a Smart City is under way. In the States, standardization and business deployments are progressing simultaneously based on the results of experimental verification "smart grid." In China, urban planners are no longer concerned just with building cities but are beginning to focus on satisfying the demand for employment and quality of lifestyle. This trend around the world has reached the point where those who should be holding the high stake in the environment – its residents – are now becoming involved.

The scale of smart city markets in the world is expected to reach 3100 trillion yen by year of 2030, and a significant number of corporations and national and local governments are getting involved. A wide variety of questions have been posted, such as – What is a is a smart city? What kind of business models will be designed for? How to enter the market? And what technologies and products are needed? No clear answers have been emerged so far.

To clarify the image of the smart city, promote a growth in related industry, and provide a direction in the field, the knowledge and wisdom of the world and further communications and discussions between different fields and industries are needed to bring together at global scale.

This is the driving statement behind “Smart City Week 2011: Declaration of The New Smart City!” organized by Nikkei Business Publications. Smart City Week 2011 will take place at YOKOHAMA where the host city has developed experimental verifications of “Smart City” on many fronts. Experts of smart city from Japan, as well as leaders from China, India, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, UAE, the States, Germany, UK and the Netherlands will join the Week.

We hope that it will serve as a place for people involved in smart cities and those planning on getting involved in the future to disseminate, share and exchange information, make new collaborations, and work together to discover and expand your business opportunities.