On October 14, the Urban Innovation Seminar was held in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia where the shortlisted cities for the 3rd Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (Guangzhou Award) were announced.

At the Seminar organized by UCLG Urban Innovation Community, Mr. Song Jingwu, Vice President of CPAFFC, and Mr. Denis Coderre, President of METROPOLIS & Mayor of Montreal gave remarks. Mr. Wen Guohui, the Mayor of Guangzhou, gave a briefing on the Guangzhou Award and announced the 15 shortlisted initiatives, which include Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Asuncion (Paraguay), Boston (United States), Brussels (Belgium), Copenhagen (Denmark), Jakarta (Indonesia), La Paz (Bolivia), Luleburgaz (Turkey), Malang (Indonesia), Menashe (Israel), Qalyubeya (Egypt), Ramallah (Palestine), Songpa-gu (Korea), Tampere (Finland) and Tlajomulco de Zuñiga (Mexico).

This is the first time that the Technical Committee meeting of the Guangzhou Award is conducted overseas. 11 members of the Technical Committee, who are from international organizations and scientific research institutions, had a three-and-a-half-day closed-door meeting and chose 15 cities for the shortlist and 30 deserving cities out of 301 valid entries submitted by 171 cities from 59 countries and regions. Among the 30 Deserving cities are Berlin, Moscow, New Taipei City, Sydney, Guangzhou and Nanning, etc.

A number of prominent people joined the panel discussion, including Mr. Peter Woods, Ambassador of UCLG ASPAC, Mr. Sunil Dubey, Senior Advisor to METROPOLIS, Ms. Monika Zimmermann, Chair of the Technical Committee of the 2016 Guangzhou Award, Mr. Arab Hoballah, Chief of Sustainable Lifestyles, Cities and Industries (UNEP) and Neal Pierce, Editor -in-Chief of Citiscope.

They discussed urban innovation, explored into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the issues concerning the urban innovation and development in the context of the upcoming New Urban Agenda. Over 100 attendees including experts to the 5th UCLG Congress, city mayors, leaders of international organizations, urban scholars and experts from Colombia also joined the discussions. 

The shortlisted cities will be submitted to the Jury for the Guangzhou Award and the five winners will be selected during the 2016 Guangzhou International Urban Innovation Conference & Guangzhou International Innovation Festival in December 2016. The event will attract over a thousand attendees from all over the world, including city mayors, thought leaders, experts and scholars, representatives from enterprises as well representatives from international organizations. They will be sharing experiences and knowledge through Urban Innovation Seminars involving the 15 shortlisted cities for the 3rd Guangzhou Award, thematic forums, discussions, dialogues and meet-ups to achieve win-win cooperation.