València is committed to citiverse and smart tourism to be "the reference technological hub of the Mediterranean"

Paula Llobet advocates on Innovation Day to communicate to citizens how these advances "can improve their daily lives"

VALENCIA, Apr. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) -

Citiverse, smart tourism and eSports are some of the main bets of the city of València to consolidate itself as "the leading technological hub of the Mediterranean", the goal of the València Innovation Capital strategy.

This has been stated by the Councilor for Tourism, Innovation and Investment Acquisition, Paula Llobet, who emphasizes, on the eve of the World Creativity and Innovation Day that is commemorated this Sunday, that one of the main challenges she faces is "communicating to citizens how innovation can improve their daily lives.

In this sense, the mayor highlights the creation of "a large innovation area" in the municipal government team to "take advantage in a transversal way of the synergies between the various areas and which, in addition, is directly led by the mayor, María José Catalá".

"Las Naves has doubled its budget, we have never had such an ambitious budget and, therefore, this is a sign that, indeed, there is a commitment to Valencia as a reference technological hub in the Mediterranean. We have a very powerful ecosystem: we are the city ​​with the most startups per inhabitants in all of Spain and it is the one that has had the most growth in 2023 and what we want is for the Administration to also be there to support, scale and put all that talent at the service of the city", stated the mayor. to Europa Press.

In this sense, he highlighted the launch of the GovTech project, which aims to "transfer to this entire innovative ecosystem of universities, technological institutes, startups and powerful corporations that work in this field the challenges that we face in the city every day." to be able to look for solutions together.

Llobet has stressed that "public-private collaboration is fundamental." "In the previous stage - he considered - the companies were expelled from the Naves themselves and what we have done is open the new 5,500 square meter building, which is La Harinera, and which is one hundred percent destined for innovation "It is a space where we want to share and through open innovation programs, training and different initiatives we work together in the administration, not only with startups, but also with SMEs and corporations."

"The most cutting-edge European projects and the investment office are located there to facilitate the arrival of technology companies that want to locate in the city with a single window with 360 service to facilitate their implementation; we have opened a 'soft landing' center with positions hot that help the landing of firms that can, for a certain period of time, carry out a first prospection and place two, three or four workers in Valencia so that they can analyze the market very well. And all in an environment in which they are in direct contact. with the Administration and the innovative ecosystem," he listed.

Another of the "milestones" that stands out is the prominence of Valencia in the European digital infrastructure on digital twins and the citiverse, a tool that uses technology to predict the results of the policies applied in cities and be able to improve them. "It is about managing with data to provide greater security," said Llobet, who has already gone to the European Parliament to present this initiative for which an international organization chaired by the city of Valencia has been created, "which places us as leaders in the digital transition that we are experiencing".

In the same direction is CitCom.AI, another European idea in which Valencia intervenes - in line with its status as European Green Capital - and which focuses on the development of solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) for smart cities and sustainable.

And in the field of video games, a few days ago the Governing Board of the Valencia City Council gave the green light to the agreement between Las Naves and the company Encom for the revitalization of València Game City, a framework to promote the video game and eSports industry. local. Based in La Harinera, it already has thirty companies this year and expects to reach 60 next year.

"We detected that we were training many of the best professionals in this field, but practically 90% were leaving. In this way, we intend to offer the possibility of retaining and attracting talent," the councilor added.

Finally, Llobet also highlights a project to install sensors in the city that provide heat map information in real time. Thus, the City Council, but also the tourist themselves, will be able to have data that allows them to design their visit and experience in a more satisfactory way, avoiding, for example, large concentrations of people at specific points.