Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: Welcome to Smart in the City, the BABLE podcast where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations.
I am your host, Tamlyn Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the City is brought to you by BABLE Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the BABLE platform at BABLE Smart Cities eu.
And today we have a very special guest for our very special episode, our 100th regular English speaking episode in Smart in the City. This has been an incredible journey since the launch of the podcast in 2022, and none of this would have been possible without you, our listener, our partners, and the inspiring community of urban change makers who've joined us to share their insights on each episode. So thank you all for being part of our journey for a better urban life. And to celebrate this incredible milestone, we're traveling for the first time to Brazil, to the city of Curitiba.
So it's another year and another year live at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, where BABLE is an official collaborating partner and Smart in the City is an official media partner. And I'm getting the chance to sit down with some of the key speakers and attendees here. So also I have to give a big shout out and thank you to Fira Barcelona for the great partnership. Today in our episode, we are traveling to Brazil, to the city of Curitiba. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's the first episode I've done with a city in Brazil. So I'm really, really excited about it. And the person I have here is an excellent person to talk all about Curitiba. His name is Dario Paixão. He's the Secretary of Economic Innovation and Artificial Intelligence for the city of Curitiba, Brazil. Welcome, Dario.
[00:02:08] Dario Paixão: Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
[00:02:12] Tamlyn Shimizu: No worries.
[00:02:13] Dario Paixão: Thank you for your invitation.
[00:02:15] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely.
It's a really big pleasure to have you.
We're going to get all into what happened last night and everything that's been going on, but first I like to get a little warmed up with a bit of a teaser question.
The question I want to ask you is, if you had to describe Curitiba in just three words, what would those words be?
[00:02:40] Dario Paixão: Sustainable, intelligent and equalitarian.
[00:02:47] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good words. Okay, we're going to dig into that more because we're going to Learn why you chose those words. I think with some of the projects that we're going to talk about, I want people to learn a little bit about you as a person. Who are you? What led you here into your role today? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
[00:03:06] Dario Paixão: Okay. So I got my degree in my major in business management and also tourism management.
So I lived. Later on, I lived in Spain for a while. I was in.
[00:03:22] Tamlyn Shimizu: So you came back home?
[00:03:23] Dario Paixão: Yeah, I was in the Canary Islands, living here and writing my master's dissertation.
And later on I went back to Brazil where I started teaching and I'm a research professor in tourism and. Okay, so as professor and researcher dealing with cities planning. So just like five years ago, the mayor asked me to join his team. So I started to work as a city secretary for Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, economic development. So that's about it.
[00:04:04] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really interesting journey that led you here, dad. You get to be back in Spain also.
[00:04:09] Dario Paixão: Yeah, sure.
[00:04:12] Tamlyn Shimizu: Now, about last night. We were together all day yesterday.
[00:04:16] Dario Paixão: It's perfect.
[00:04:17] Tamlyn Shimizu: At the Intelligent Community Forum's Global Summit, which was held in Barcelona. Head of the Smart City Expo this year. And you actually received a big recognition last year. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:04:30] Dario Paixão: Yeah, it was an honour. It was a night to remember. Because being with ICF is like being with mentors that knows how intelligent communities works. And so we learn a lot as, of course, Curitiba is the smartest city in Brazil.
Actually, we won last year the World Smart City Awards here in Barcelona from the Fira Barcelona Prize. But we were chasing the ICF awards because we think like a forum where you really learn about best practices. And also we gather together a lot of towns, regions, counties and cities. And you can see like small projects, small actions that really puts people in the centre. And that's what we want to learn. So last year I was in New York for the ICF Forum. It was great.
But coming back to Barcelona, it's where I lived, where our mayor's wife was born at, and being here in a city that has been planned since the 1800s. So it was very special.
[00:06:10] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, wonderful. And so that Intelligent Community Forums Award, the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year, you were up against six other intelligent communities from the top seven. And it was really an emotional night when you guys got onto the stage. I have to say, it was really. It was really touching to see how important and how.
How grateful and welcoming and everything Last night. It was really emotional. I'm really happy that I got to for that. So congratulations.
[00:06:43] Dario Paixão: Again, thank you very much. We think this is one of the highest awards we can get. So it was very important for us, for our community. Quba right now is like, everyone is talking about it and we have hosted John, Young, Doug, so some other ICF members, they were in Curitiba, they were auditing, they were evaluating our city. So we were learning together with him, with them. So it was a very special year for us because it's all. It all beginnings in like, like maybe in January or February when we start applying for it. And then we have to go through many levels of evaluation. So coming here and getting this price was beautiful.
[00:07:38] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, it really was. I want to dig in a little bit more to the projects that kind of got you to that place and what you've been doing in the city. So you are recognized. For example, a revolutionary platform, the urban hypervisor platform. Right. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
[00:08:01] Dario Paixão: Yes, actually, that's a brand new project we started with a security digital wall.
We have 2,000 cameras in the city, so we can see everything that's going on. But that was for security. And right now we have a hypervisor. It's like a big brother for the town, for the city, because we connect data from traffic to sustainability, parks, mobility and everything that is going on in the city. We can see like this huge room with a lot of screens. And that really helps urban planners to think in solutions to our citizen.
[00:08:55] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely.
Considering the citizens.
When you talk about data and safety and monitoring, people always think of, you know, maybe privacy and security concerns. Have you. How do you balance that with, you know, innovating and becoming more smart, let's say?
[00:09:14] Dario Paixão: Yeah, well, for us, being smart is connecting people, environment and technology.
So we've been doing this like four from like 40 years ago.
Curitiba is the first city in Brazil to have a university, to have an urban planner, planning to urban plan, to have a planning institute, to have 5G, to have AI AI secretariat. So we are known as the smartest city in Brazil.
So but before that, we were known as the ecological capital of Brazil.
We have 56 parks in the city. So it's a very green area.
It's not that huge as a city. We have maybe 20km by 20km, but it's.
The population is.
I think it's big, large because we have 2 million people living there, but it's still green.
And people are very conscious about the green areas and recycling and monitoring the rivers.
We still have a long way to go on that, but I can Tell you that connecting with technology. We came up with solutions that are the citizens recognized. We're going in a good way, in a good path. Like even we had just the elections and we won the elections because the people thought we were doing a good job in that smart city philosophies kind of way.
[00:11:18] Tamlyn Shimizu: So the response has overwhelmingly been positive from your citizens. They see the value in what you're doing.
[00:11:24] Dario Paixão: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Like our mayor, you met him yesterday.
He's very cute, very intelligent guy.
He's known in the whole country because he was Federal Ministry for the president.
Like 80% of the population would vote him for him again. So.
[00:11:49] Tamlyn Shimizu: 80%, that is incredible for anybody.
[00:11:52] Dario Paixão: Yeah, yeah.
[00:11:53] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very, very well loved with throughout Brazil. I think that helps a lot in getting some of these projects across the line. Right. This political buy in from your mayor, this love for the mayor. It helped a lot balancing the political buy in and also the citizen support. Right.
[00:12:09] Dario Paixão: And he has the ideas.
He.
He has his stuff going like every. Everybody has to fight for results.
And one of his ideas is solar pyramid. So we had this landfill in Curitiba. It's a huge landfill and we couldn't put more garbage in there. Waste.
[00:12:40] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:12:41] Dario Paixão: Because it was full already. So what we had to do. Well, his idea was converting this landfill into solar farm.
It isn't like.
It is a great idea, but it's simple. But not many cities do it.
[00:13:02] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:13:02] Dario Paixão: So. So now we have this huge hill with 5,000 solar plates.
[00:13:11] Tamlyn Shimizu: Panels.
[00:13:11] Dario Paixão: Panels. Panels. And 40% of the city hall buildings don't pay electricity. Electricity anymore.
[00:13:20] Tamlyn Shimizu: Wow.
[00:13:21] Dario Paixão: So that's just one idea. We have many other ideas.
[00:13:23] Tamlyn Shimizu: Do you know where he got this idea from? Like did he get this idea from learning from other c. Did it just come to him while he was sleeping one day? Where did this idea come from?
[00:13:31] Dario Paixão: He's an urbanist. He has learned with Jaime Lerner, which is a very, very well known architect. Not just in Brazil, but in the world. He was very famous. He's something like similar to Cerda here in Barcelona, the architect that plant our. This city.
So. And he like travels a lot. Travels a lot. He's a writer. He.
He likes to think about cities. Like it. He's an engineering engineer.
[00:14:08] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. So these ideas kind of come to him from his background and from the interactions with others and.
[00:14:13] Dario Paixão: Yeah, but he loves nature. Like he lives in what. What we call like a small farm just outside the city and he loves nature. So he has these ideas of for example, planting 100,000 trees each year. So we've planned in the last five years, half of a million trees in the city. That's a lot.
[00:14:40] Tamlyn Shimizu: And in Brazil, that's a very important topic as well, because of the deforestation that's been happening and all of that.
[00:14:46] Dario Paixão: And because of the climate change, of course. Yeah. We have this climate change mitigation plan, and that's very like. That's a big deal for us. Like a very strong issue right now.
[00:14:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, yeah, of course. And hitting many cities. Of course. Yesterday we were actually faced with, you know, torrential rainfall. There was some flooding here in Barcelona. We saw the really devastating flooding happening in Valencia. And that's kind of setting the tone also for this smart cities event that we're at right now, because we really have to see how can innovation really support our climate change efforts, because this is depressing. This is the most urgent topic probably that we're facing today. So.
[00:15:26] Dario Paixão: Yeah, and we almost have a flood in Curitiba. We had drought in Curitiba. So we had a situation just like Valencia in a state nearby. So we are very concerned about that.
[00:15:41] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess we. We kind of talked about it. But maybe you think that there's another main challenge. Do you think that climate change is the main challenge that Curitiba is facing, or is there another challenge that you think is really the bottleneck in your smart city journey? Like, what challenges still remain?
[00:16:00] Dario Paixão: Well, in Brazil, we have a big issue with rivers, like cleaning the rivers. And it's a cultural problem because, of course, we have this, like, poor neighbourhoods and people would throw things away.
So our rivers are not so clean as they should be.
[00:16:21] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:16:22] Dario Paixão: So one of our biggest projects is doing, like, planning these line parks, like line green parks by the rivers. So citizen could run cycle, just, I don't know, just be by the river.
I don't know, maybe in the future even fish, like things that we have seen in Seoul, for example. I was there last. Last month, and they can get into the river, and that's for us. It's strange because it's a strange situation because we have so many rivers in Brazil, and most of the rivers, of course, are clean. But inside the urban areas, we have this problem.
[00:17:15] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I. With the. With the podcast, we usually do a fun segment now.
[00:17:24] Dario Paixão: Yeah.
[00:17:25] Tamlyn Shimizu: And the segment that we selected for you today is called Top or Flop.
Top or Flop. Respond quickly with your positive or negative review on a variety of topics.
[00:17:39] Dario Paixão: Okay.
[00:17:40] Tamlyn Shimizu: So basically I give you a topic and you say if it's a top or a flop for you, okay, okay, okay. AI powered surveillance for safety.
[00:17:49] Dario Paixão: Top.
[00:17:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Self driving public transportation.
Autonomous public transportation.
[00:17:58] Dario Paixão: Flop.
[00:17:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Flop.
Vertical farming in urban areas.
[00:18:03] Dario Paixão: Top.
[00:18:04] Tamlyn Shimizu: Augmented reality AR for tourism.
[00:18:08] Dario Paixão: Top.
[00:18:10] Tamlyn Shimizu: Virtual reality. City council meetings.
[00:18:16] Dario Paixão: Flop.
[00:18:18] Tamlyn Shimizu: Car free zones in city centres.
[00:18:24] Dario Paixão: Top.
[00:18:24] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay. Smart City Expo, World Congress, Barcelona.
Oh, maybe ICF Global Summit.
[00:18:32] Dario Paixão: Yeah, top.
[00:18:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay, perfect.
I went to. Okay, which ones did you say? So you said flop. For public transit. For autonomous public transportation.
Why?
[00:18:44] Dario Paixão: Well, because in Brazil it's pretty hard to get this testing right now.
I've seen some places where these stats are going on, like in Seoul or us, and they are very limited because it's still hard to do it. And Brazil would be harder. Yeah, we can do it outside the city. Like we could do in some maybe quiet condominiums or maybe, maybe we can test them in city centres.
In Brazilian cities. Right now it's pretty hard. It's going to be the future. Yeah, but I mean, flop. It is important.
[00:19:30] Tamlyn Shimizu: It's not a priority for you right now.
[00:19:32] Dario Paixão: That's right.
[00:19:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Okay, perfect. Now, I think you answered it in some degree, but I would love to hear a little bit more about. So we ask every single guest the same question for every episode and it's to you. What is a smart city?
So I'd love to hear your definition what a smart city is.
[00:19:54] Dario Paixão: Okay.
A smart city is.
It connects people, technology and environment. But people should be always in the centre of all projects and actions and programs. So that's why I like Intelligent Community better. Like the intelligent Community.
Words or concept?
[00:20:28] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, better. Yeah, yeah. Makes perfect sense. So thank you.
That's all I have for you today. I just have to give you a big thank you and again, congratulations for winning the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year.
[00:20:41] Dario Paixão: Thank you very much.
[00:20:42] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, and it's really been a pleasure to talk to you a little bit more. Also listen to your presentation yesterday and really get to be there for the whole show. And okay. I really appreciate all the work that you're putting in. So thank you very much.
[00:20:55] Dario Paixão: Thank you. And you should. And BABLE should go to Brazil.
[00:20:58] Tamlyn Shimizu: Well, I'm working on it. I told Alex, our CEO yesterday.
[00:21:01] Dario Paixão: Alex and you.
[00:21:02] Tamlyn Shimizu: So we're going to Brazil now, right?
[00:21:06] Dario Paixão: You'll be welcome in Curitiba.
[00:21:08] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you very much. And thank you to all of our listeners. Of course, don't forget, you can always create a free account on BABLE Smart Cities eu. You can find out more about smart city projects, smart cities solutions and implementations. Thank you very much.
Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
