10 Catalan companies specializing in Smart Cities, including Ateknea Solutions, have traveled to New York in search of public tenders, partners, and new clients.

The trip, organized by ACCIÓ, a Spanish Governmental agency, began last Tuesday and ends today, Friday May 5th.

The companies’ agenda included meetings with major American companies in the sector, state-of-the-art technology companies, and public agencies of New York and other municipalities in the area. The objective being to learn about the development of Smart Cities within New York City, which is driving the policy NYC Strategy for Building Smart + Equitable City.

The representatives of the Catalan companies have presented their projects and explored access to public tenders in the region. They also visited the incubator “Urbantech Hub @ GCT”, which specializes in the field of Smart Cities and is the result of collaborations between the City of New York and companies like GE and Microsoft.

Ateknea Solutions is among the 10 participating companies in this mission. Crea Idea LAb, Digalix, Nexus Geographics, Opentrends, Starlab, Talk & Code, Thingtia, We Smart Park and Worldsensing, are among the other companies that have been participating in the activities of the past few days. All of them are specialized in the field of IoT (Internet of Things), big data, business intelligence, geolocation, sensors and urban equipment.

A key sector for the Catalan economy

The mission forms part of ACCIÓ’s strategy to boost the Smart Cities sector in Catalonia. According to a study carried out by ACCIÓ, the Smart Cities sector generates 3% of Spain’s GDP. In fact, there are 270 companies in Spain dedicated specifically to this sector, employing 116.163 workers. Additionally, €6,969 million of the total turnover of these companies comes from their activities related to Smart Cities.