July 2nd, 2018, „Blockchain for smart, sustainable and low carbon cities” themed Panel session was held within the framework of „Global Silk Road. Cities’ Mayors Forum”. The session was organized by Science and Education center „Green Academy” in cooperation with Astana Akimat, Evercity (Singapore) and LLC „Termotekhnika”.
The event was aimed at the discussion of international experience in the field of low carbon development within the framework of Paris Climate agreement realization and implementation of blockchain to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission by cities’ plants.
The session was curated by Dr. Bakhyt Esekina, member of „green” economy council under President of Kazakhstan Republic, director of Science and Education center „Green Academy” and Mr. Xiaochen Zhang, president of FinTech4Good, UN ESCAP Digital Economy Task Force. The session was opened with the foreword on behalf of city’s Akim, delivered by the director of Entrepreneurship and investment department of Astana Akimat A. Abdykadyrov. He congratulated all those present with Astana’s 20th Anniversary and expressed Akimat’s intentions and determination to cooperation with UN and other international organizations in the field of cities digitization and low carbon development. On behalf of Ministry of Education and science fund of Kazakhstan Republic the visitors were greeted by A. Sultangazin.
Work of the Session began with the video message by TSB ITU (UN) Chairman Dr. Chaesub Lee, which announced priorities of this UN Agency’s activities within the framework of United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative realization and smart sustainable development KPIs. Dr. Chaesub Lee also welcomed Astana to the initiative which can be seen as an international smart city club. Then, U4SSC initiative partner and the head of „Russian Carbon Fund” Alexey Shadrin solemnly handed the director of Entrepreneurship and investment department of Astana Akimat A. Abdykadyrov the official letter from Geneva, Switzerland about Astana joining the Initiative, signed by Dr. Chaesub Lee.
The ceremony was followed by Blockchain и Fintech Accelerator (Moscow) founder and CEO Maxim Avdeev, the head of Center of Environmental economy and natural resources of NRU HSE (Russian Federation) Georgy Safonov, deputy division chief of targeted projects department of JSC „Strunnye tekhnologii” (Minsk, Belorussia) Svetlana Voloshina, FirstProject’s (South Korea) Alexander Kim, AiraLabRus (Russian Federation) CEO Ivan Petrov, R&D „Termotekhnika” director Valentin Kim.
As a result of the discussions, a Memorandum of cooperation was signed between Astana Akimat, Fintech4Good, Science and Education center „Green Academy” and Fund for science development of Kazakhstan Republic aimed at joint research in the field of smart city and Astana city digitization. Also, recommendations for blokchain implementation for reducing greenhouse gas emission on the national and city level for Republic of Kazakhstan, Astana and other cities of Kazakhstan Akimats were adopted.
