BARCELONA, March 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Barcelona is the favorite city to win the European Capital of Innovation contest

Barcelona has raised as one of the finalists cities to the European Capital of Innovation Award, also called 'iCapital', a prize created by the European Commission to distinguish the city that has created a better 'innovation ecosystem' linking citizens, government agencies, associations and companies.

As announced by the board of experts that will judge the prize, Barcelona is one of the favorites to become the iCapital for all the efforts that the city has done for introducing the use of new technologies to bring the city closer to citizens. This is just a result of the emphasis that Barcelona has put on being an international benchmark for using technologies to develop smart city management.

Not in vain the Catalan capital is considered the 4th Smart City in Europe according to Fast Company rankings. This is because Barcelona is a pioneering city when it comes to the concept of an Intelligent City. With an impressive portfolio of smart city initiatives, that are being carried out in different areas such as "Sensoring" the city, Smart Lighting, Smart Mobility or O-Government, Barcelona is also the leading city providing support to the global smart cities movement.

In fact, to talk about Barcelona means talking about a global smart city benchmark, an innovative city and the world's mobile capital. In southern Europe, Barcelona leads the way in adopting Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and has one of the highest ICT penetration rates in homes and businesses, as well as eGovernment.

With the aim of encouraging cities to stimulate innovation and share their best ideas for the future, the European Commission has created the iCapital Award that will prize the winner with €500000 in order to help the city scale up its achievements.

The winning city will be announced at the Innovation Convention 2014, Europe's premier innovation event which will take place in Brussels on 10 and 11 March.

For further information or interviews with relevant people, such as policymakers from the City Council or representatives of tech companies based in Barcelona, call +34 607 557 091 or e-mail to [email protected]

CONTACT: Claudia Safont +34 607 408 717 [email protected] / Silvia Sola +34 607 557 091 [email protected]

VISIT: http://www.barcelona.cat/inspires

SOURCE Barcelona City Council