Speaker Bio & Abstract
City of Athens
Greece
BiographyKonstatinos Champidis is the Chief Digital Officer of Athens, responsible for the digital transformation of the city. Before this, Konstantinos spent two years as a special advisor to the Mayor of Athens. After a successful career in the private sector as an indepented engineer, Konstantinos, released the first Digital Roadmap, which includes all the digital initiatives of Athens. He enjoys cycling and listening music. He is married and has a wonderfull 6 year old daughter.AbstractThe Smart Cities model, as we know it today, is a technology-centric model. We are talking more about platforms and large systems and less about users: residents living in cities. We must therefore begin to understand the term "smart cities" more as a rigid process of digital transformation than a static sum of technological systems. Cities need to develop a set of strategic principles that will encourage and enhance the digital transformation of societies as a whole. Equal access for citizens to technological tools and skills, open access to data and information and the development of data-centric policies must be part of our priorities. These priorities should serve to solve major modern challenges such as climate change, resilience, and sustainable development.