BizzTech was proud to participate alongside FIWARE at the SMART GREEN CITY BENGUERIR – Africa Forum, hosted by UM6P – University Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Benguerir, Morocco, on May 12, 2026.
The forum brought together innovators, policymakers, researchers, universities, and industry leaders to explore how open technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital sovereignty can support the next generation of sustainable and human-centric cities across Africa.
As a FIWARE member, BizzTech joined the discussion on how open, interoperable technology ecosystems can help cities and regions build smarter, more resilient, and locally empowering digital infrastructure.
Joe Appleton Represents BizzTech in Panel on Technological Sovereignty and Frugal Innovation
BizzTech’s Joe Appleton contributed to Panel 2 – Technological Sovereignty & Frugal Innovation in Service of Territories, joining FIWARE CEO Chandra Challagonda, Adrian Peñalver from OdinS, and other international experts.
The panel focused on one of the most important questions facing cities and regions today: how can territories modernize through advanced technologies while maintaining control over their data, infrastructure, and digital future?
For BizzTech, this conversation aligns closely with its mission to deliver browser-based operational digital twins powered by agentic AI, helping organizations improve situational awareness, coordinate action, and make better decisions through live, interoperable data environments.
Open Technologies as a Foundation for Africa’s Smart Cities
A key theme of the forum was that Africa is not simply adopting existing smart city models. Instead, it is actively redefining them through openness, collaboration, local empowerment, and technological sovereignty.
Open-source and interoperable technologies can play a critical role in this transformation. They allow cities, universities, public institutions, and private-sector partners to build digital infrastructure that is transparent, scalable, and adaptable to local needs.
For emerging smart city ecosystems, this matters because digital transformation is not only about deploying technology. It is also about ensuring that communities retain ownership of their data, understand their systems, and can shape their own development pathways.
AI, Digital Twins, and Data Sovereignty for Territorial Development
The Smart Green City Benguerir Africa Forum highlighted how artificial intelligence and open platforms can support more sustainable and citizen-centric urban development.
BizzTech’s work in operational digital twins is directly relevant to this conversation. By integrating data from OT, IT, IoT, GIS, BIM, and other systems into live 3D environments, digital twins can help cities and territories visualize complex operations, monitor infrastructure, support planning, and coordinate responses in real time.
When combined with open standards and strong governance, these technologies can help territories accelerate innovation while protecting digital sovereignty.
Collaboration Across FIWARE, UM6P, and the Smart City Ecosystem
The event demonstrated the value of collaboration between universities, open-source communities, technology providers, and public-sector stakeholders.
FIWARE’s participation, together with contributions from BizzTech, OdinS, HAW Kiel, UM6P, and other ecosystem partners, reflected a shared commitment to building smart communities that are open, inclusive, sustainable, and locally empowering.
BizzTech thanks FIWARE and UM6P for creating a platform for meaningful exchange and looks forward to continued collaboration with partners across Africa and beyond.