Notes on OuiShare Fest BCN: The social approach to smart cities

img_8422OuiShare Fest is a non-academic event that took place in Barcelona and is connected to other similar events, like OuiShare Fest in Paris. It’s main purpose is to discuss and show new initiatives regarding the Sharing Economy. This was my first time that I’ve attended. Particularly motivated to assist to the workshop organized by the Making Sense EU project, and also to listen what is the perspective that BCN City Hall has around the Smart City discourse.

OuiShare is known as a non-enterprise oriented, but a community based organization. Beyond that, funding in the beginning of the project become from the main sharing economy companies, such as Airbnb. Nowadays, it remains, but in the Barcelona edition it won it main support from the Ayuntamiento.

I highlight this background because since the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, stated against the abuse of these kind of business and those related to Smart City discourse, many changes in Barcelona are happening around the scene. Continue reading