In 2015, Fundação Getulio Vargas will bring to the country for the first time, UrbanTec - an international conference that brings together leading experts in Smart Cities to discuss innovative solutions and strategies for sustainable urban development in Brazil. The partnership was signed last week between the president of FGV, Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal, and the President and CEO of Koelnmesse GmbH, a German company also responsible for conducting the meeting, Gerald Böse.FGV Projetos will be responsible for the operation of the event, which will be supported by the German government. The unit director, Cesar Cunha Campos, and the Consul General of Germany, Harald Klein, also attended the meeting which sealed the partnership.UrbanTec will be held on October 1-2, 2015, in Rio de Janeiro, with experts, public administrators, scholars, entrepreneurs and executives, who will discuss knowledge, solutions and technologies for smarter cities. Organized into several panels, the conference will address issues related to territorial development, with a focus on mobility and urban transportation.The first UrbanTec was held in 2012 in Cologne, Germany. In 2013 the first satellite event in Beijing, China, for 500 participants from ten countries took place. In 2014, the conference attracted 800 people in China and, in 2015, the conference is expected to together up to 1,500 people in Rio de Janeiro.We are very happy to have found an excellent partner for UrbanTec Brazil - Fundação Getulio Vargas, which is the best known think tank in Latin America. FGV is a pioneer in the area of urbanization and exerts much influence in this field, said Gerald Böse.  Please click and visit UrbanTec's website.*In the photo, from the left: Cesar Cunha Campos, Gerald Böse, Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal and Harald Klein.