Pablo Collazzo visited ASA, IIASA

Abstract

The ‘smart city’ concept has evolved over time yet has recurrently emphasized means over ends, i.e. the focus has arguably been on technological inputs rather than people- and firm-centered outputs, set to improve end-user productivity. Additionally, the literature has largely looked at smart cities in mature markets, with developing and transition economies remarkably ignored. An expected contribution of this study is to critically revisit the meaning and scope of a ‘smart city’, developing a working definition for a developing/transition economy context applied to the Mexican city of Puebla. The papers builds on Giffinger’s Smart City model, which is extended to account for relevant developing/transition economy features, by standardizing and aggregating the variables through an exploratory factor analysis.

Prof. Dr. Pablo Collazzo has an extensive academic and professional experience at the interplay of competitiveness and sustainable development. His affiliations are the Vienna University of Economics and Harvard Business School (MOC network). A former Rector of Universidad del Pacífico in Ecuador, he was also Chair of the Institute for Responsible Competitiveness at Nyenrode University in the Netherlands. Prior to that, he was Director of Academic Affairs at the European Academy of Business in Society in Brussels, after an international career in investment banking. He serves as board member to profit and nonprofit organizations and is Senior Advisor on Sustainable Competitiveness to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. His academic background is in law and economics, with graduate studies at Boston University (MBA) and ESADE (PhD).