Smart Villages: the sustainable and smart transition beyond urban environments

In early November, at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, the Smart City Institute team will unveil its 7^th Smart City Practical Handbook entitled " Smart Villages: the sustainable and smart transition beyond urban environments".

For over a decade, the notion of Smart City has been at the heart of public debate, yet many non-urban areas are struggling to identify with the concept and its benefits. And this, despite the evolution of its definition from a techno-centric approach to a more human-centric one, focused on sustainability and the well-being of citizens. This has led to the emergence of concepts such as Smart Rurality and Smart Villages, which are more in tune with the realities of these (semi-)rural territories.

In light of this potential gap between the Smart City concept and its application to smaller or more rural territories, the Smart City Institute has decided to dedicate its 7th Smart City Practical Handbook to this theme, with the aim of demystifying the notion of Smart Village by highlighting the specificities linked to the sustainable and smart transition of territories in a (semi-)rural context.

The aim of this approach is not, however, to create a divide between urban and rural areas, but rather to enable smaller areas to fell more concerned by the concept through the illustration of numerous rural best practices.

> Download the guide (FR)

PRESENTATION WEBINAR

Our researcher Audrey Lebas, author of this 7th volume, presented the contents of the guide during a webinar on Wednesday November 27 (In French), in collaboration with Xavier Delmon, coordinator of the Smart working group of the Walloon Rural Development Network.