Polish subsidiary FBSerwis was a proud sponsor of the 4th European Congress of Local Governments held in Krakow, April 26-27. The event attracted almost 2000 regional and national government officials, business executives, NGOs and journalists from 36 countries. The programme of the event comprises of over 80 debates, lectures and workshops about regional politics, economy, environmental and social issues.
FBSerwis was the partner on the panel Innovative infrastructure solutions as a chance for faster growth of regions where representatives of local governments, educational institutions and business exchanged views on innovations in infrastructure and shared their experience in implementing innovative infrastructural projects.
The debate on innovations was preceded by a presentation given by Przemyslaw Paczek, the CEO of Hyper Poland, who explained the concept of a Hyperloop train that uses magnetic levitation and achieves record speed. The prototype of the train was exhibited at the congress venue.
FBSerwis CEO Artur Pielech argued that regional governments should focus on solutions accessible to all local governments – mainly in the realm of energy efficiency. He emphasised that local governments should carry out large scale integrated projects as they have greater impact on the regions’ development. Artur Pielech encouraged local authorities to build long term relationships with commercial partners on the basis of public private partnership model and to elaborate common projects that would satisfy all the stakeholders.
Professor Cezary Orlowski of WSB University observed that smaller scale innovations gave citizens a chance to demonstrate their creativity and build citizenship awareness. He gave an example of a mobile application implemented in Gdansk where citizens could indicated places where they wished for additional trees to be planted.
Wojciech Zablocki, the mayor of Praga-Polnoc district of Warsaw also highlighted the advantage of small investments in local infrastructure like green walls, photovoltaic panels or micro fans.
Grzegorz Lipiec, a member of the Board of the Marshal’s Office of Malopolska Region (Krakow) spoke about ways to increase citizenship awareness by letting the citizens propose their own infrastructural projects and decide which ones should be financed from the regional budget.
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