Metropolis attended the Rio Summit on Service Innovation in Cities and theLiving Labs Global Awards Ceremony, organized by Living Labs Global, together with the Cities of Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona and the collaborators The Climate Group and Oracle.

Metropolis and the NIUA (National Institute of Urban Affairs)have renovated their ongoing collaboration for the period 2012-2014. The new agreement was signed during the past visit of the Metropolis delegation to New Delhi (India) regarding the coming Metropolis World Congress in Hyderabad in 2014.

The host city for Metropolis World Congress 2014, Hyderabad received the Metropolis delegation with enormous enthusiasm for a series of preparatory visits and meetings during April 4-11, 2012. “We are very happy that Hyderabad has been accepted to be the host. The city has all infrastructure facilities we need. We are surprised at the high-level of interest and facilities,” says Alain Le Saux, Metropolis Secretary General.

On 23 April, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and UN-Habitat, with the support of Cities Alliance, gathered local and regional governments leaders and networks together to a meeting in New York where they presented the key messages of these groups for Rio+20 to both United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, United Nations officials and the Group of Friends of Sustainable Cities.

At the invitation of UCLG and UN-Habitat, local and regional networks will meet the Secretary General tomorrow in New York to deliver joint messages  which are the result of a broad consultation with all local and regional networks.
With the support of the Ford Foundations and Citis Alliance, the local and regional authorities stressed the importance of acknowledging the positive role that urbanization plays in development.

Living Labs Global, together with the Cities of Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona, Oracle and The Climate Group will organize the Rio Summit on Service Innovation in Cities on May 2 and 3, 2012, in Rio de Janeiro.Metropolis is an event partner at the Rio Summit as part of the Initiative Agile Cities for a New Age of Accessibility, Efficiency and Growth, a joint effort to meet global challenges through technology and innovation and to support cities in answering questions on how new technologies can be used effectively to meet climate, urban service, social and economic objectives.

The city of Barcelona played host to the 20^th Congress of the CIDEU from 13 to 16 March 2012.

Within the process of city transformation, globalisation, the expanding use of technologies and knowledge management are bearing an impact on the construction of neo-tertiary urban spaces, which are conducive to the advent of smart cities based on smart citizens, glocal reach, knowledge generation and management and the transmission of values.

Following the proposal the Mayor of Guangzhou, Wan Qingliang, the city is launching the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (abbreviated as Guangzhou Award) jointly with Metropolis and UCLG. The Awards, which will be given during the next Metropolis Board of Directors, is an effort to improve the socio-economic environments in cities and regions, promote sustainability, and hence advance the livelihood of their citizens.