H22 City Expo: ‘Bringing out the superhero in everyone’
A BABLE Podcast Write-up
Missed the fourth episode of Smart in the City — the BABLE Podcast? Catch up here on key highlights of our conversation with Åsa Bjering to discuss the H22 City Expo event to come in Helsingborg, Sweden this summer.
Helsingborg is not only one of the seven Swedish and 100 European cities selected by the European Commission to be part of the Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, aiming for climate neutrality by 2030. It will also be hosting the H22 City Expo this summer, a 35-day event where the citizens and guests from all over the world are invited to experience how innovation and collaboration can solve the world’s most pressing challenges in everyday life.
To learn more about this innovation-driven city on Sweden’s west coast, its vibes and spirit, and particularly about its ambitious H22 City Expo project, BABLE had the pleasure to meet Åsa Bjering, project and international relations manager at the city of Helsingborg, who shared valuable insights.
Legendary, trendsetting exhibitions
Helsingborg has a long history of hosting large exhibitions. In 1955, H55 attracted about 1 million visitors and made Scandinavian design poplar internationally. 44 year later, H99 became the precursor of several housing and living fairs in the whole country. The bar is high but in Helsingborg, they like to push themselves and to aim high. This tradition is to be continued this summer with H22 City Expo, taking place from 30 May to 3 July 2022, in the whole city to Helsingborg.
An idea becomes reality
For Åsa Bjering, H22 City Expo is way more than a rich program, way more than an ambitious event of 35 days.
How to move and transform society? How to tackle current and future challenges such as climate change and planetary boundaries? What do the residents expect from their city? After having pushed themselves for over a decade to find answers and suitable solutions, they concluded that things were not moving fast enough.
“We sat down and said, ‘let’s give this a high priority’, put it on the top of the agenda, ensuring that innovation was part of the core mandate in the city. It is a necessity to innovate, to engage with the residents, with the companies and push and enable innovation!
Now, being in the history of Helsingborg, we of course wanted to make a big expo out of it. But we also have the very thorough understanding that we don’t want it to be a 35-day innovation show only, we want it to actually bring change to Helsingborg, to give new tools, new skills to our staff, and to give a profound understanding for our residents what it also takes from them being part of the transformative change.
And that’s why we say, it will not only be for 35 days! Even though if you are talking about H22 City Expo as 35 days, for us, this is three years… and it is only a step towards the future, of our vision of Helsingborg.”
As the necessary funds were approved in 2019, the planning for H22 started.
H22–35 days — 780 events
H22 consists of two parts: a city-wide innovation initiative with the goal of becoming a smarter and more sustainable city, and a city expo, showing to its guests what has been achieved until summer 2022. The long-term city-wide innovation initiative continues during and after the exhibition period.
Smart city solutions ‘under your skin’
The H22 City Expo organisers want to make Smart City solutions a vivid on-site experience — tangible, touchable and relatable. A simulation in the harbour, vacuum toilets, or a prototype of an outdoor aquarium are just three out of many more concrete examples.
The visitors are invited to walk around in Helsingborg and to explore what the future will bring, to interact with innovations, to develop an understanding of all the technology or all the processes behind. Or they can take an active role in participatory processes and contribute to decision making with consultant architects on questions like “How can we push for further integration?”, and much more.
And for the younger ones? Four superheroes, representing the elements of the earth, will help guide the children coming to H22 City Expo.
Walk around and get new ideas from others
Central theme of the H22 Smart City Expo is “open up” — to the world, to circularity, to life quality. Challenges cannot be solved alone. Therefore, Helsingborg wishes to engage with the world, to enable cocreation with their citizens, businesses, and companies.
The program offers a wide range of topics, such as urban development, sustainability, environment, and climate, but also culture, nature, and food, and a wide range of formats, like talks, site visits, hackathons, meetings, and conferences. There is something for everyone.
One of these conferences is Urban Brilliance, a four-day program at the very beginning of H22 City Expo, presenting innovations from sustainable cities around the world. The goal is to improve life in smart and sustainable cities, by sharing successes and failures, and by inspiring and learning from each other.
And there is much more to be discovered in this year’s biggest arena in Europe for sustainable urban transformation.
Steps towards the future
“Again, I have to say that it is longer than six weeks. It has been three years and it is heading for the future. It is a trampoline towards the future! So, it is really about the core of making a change in the city. We are talking about changing the DNA of the city. How do we adopt to the future? Doing that, it has been quite valuable, I would say, to have a deadline, to have a joint deadline in the city where you push yourself towards”, emphasizes Åsa Bjering.
In one of the workshops, the participants can leave a message for the future on cement blocks that will be integrated in the pavement and walk.
“You will walk on the dreams and hopes and ideas of people attending the H22 City Expo, may they live here, or elsewhere, because the future is us, jointly. Those kinds of stories, they will stick, they will not only be for the 35 days; people will be able to come to Helsingborg and see the heritage of the H22 City Expo, ten years from now… I hope and I think!”
Want to learn more about Helsingborg and the H22 City Expo?
Be sure to listen to the full podcast episode for more insights — some more factual and some more fun — including:
- How would Åsa describe Helsingborg in 3 words?
- What are the opportunities and benefits for city representatives coming to the H22 City Expo? And what are the benefits for companies?
- What is it that makes us belong in a city?
- How did Åsa respond to our ‘Roll with the Punches’ segment? And to our ending question ‘To you, what is a Smart City’?
And if you are reading (or listening) as a representative of a city or network, we’d love to have you join us on a future episode. Reach out to our host Tamlyn Shimizu with your interest.
And for even more insights, join our Smart City community
Want to read more about Smart City implementations? Find them on the BABLE platform!
Make sure to also take a look at our other Podcast Write-Ups, and always feel free to reach out to us for any inquiry.
