Manuel Tarin

1. You are currently director of The Smart City Journal and Metatech Publicaciones S.L. Can you tell us a bit about these projects, your journey and professional experience?

At my age, I have worked through different sectors up to the present time and current news. My whole family is in the journalist world. It is a virus that we have inside. I started as a music critic, then cinema. After that, I worked 25 years in the world of sports and, finally, in the Smart City world. All of them are part of my life and I find them exciting.

In these fifty years, I have had many projects, but the expansion of The Smart City Journal (www.thesmartcityjournal.com) as a communication platform for the most emerging sector of the market seems to me irreplaceable.

2. What can you tell us about The Smart City Journal editorial project?

The Smart City Journal is the most interesting and universal project of my career. At this moment we have audiences in 125 countries and more than 700 cities. I find it something incredible when I open Google Analytics and in the real-time analysis, I can realize that there are users that are seeing us from Tanzania to Urzbekystan. That globality explains what cities and companies do for a better future. I am passionate about it.

3. You have a degree in Law and Journalism, being this last one an area that you practice in a specific way, since you are the director of a newspaper specialized in Smart Cities. What has attracted you the most in this area?

Without a doubt, the transformation that the world is going through and now more after the pandemic. Territorial borders, labor concepts and human relations will suffer and change like never before. And besides, nobody can forecast anything. Only the protagonism of the cities.

4. You have also been connected to the sports world, having been editor and, later, director of Mundo Deportivo. What made you leave the sports world to dedicate yourself to the Smart Cities area?

I have lived through different stages during my 50 years of professional life. I was the youngest newspaper director (El Mundo Deportivo) in Spain at my 37 years old and, after three years, I decided to work on my own. Sometimes with more luck than the others.

But from all my stages I have gotten many experiences and, above all, I have met incredible people.

5. What changes did you feel at this stage? Was it a difficult process?

A change of habits. For example, before I used to work every weekend. The sports world is more active on weekends. And suddenly, when I decide to work by myself, I could enjoy my family, go to the countryside or to the beach.

It felt strange after 20 years in the same place, with the same people, etc.

6. Do you feel that the Smart Cities theme is being increasingly explored?

Change is inevitable. The world is moving towards the cities/states again. For example, Singapore is already a city/state; Luxembourg, Hong Kong and even Barcelona or Lisbon are city/state.

7. What is a Smart City for you and what are its main features?

Basically, a Smart City is one in which technology is at the service of citizens, with a great perfection and at a minimum cost.

8. What are the main challenges found in the development of a Smart City?

After the pandemic, Smart Health will be the great global challenge; as well as mobility, energy saving and Big Data in cities.

9. What are the benefits of living in a Smart City?

VLiving in a well-developed Smart City has several advantages: economic (for example, better energy at a lower price); supply and demand (Big Data); education (e-Learning) and especially e-Governance as an exercise in transparency.

10. Being PARTTEAM & OEMKIOSKS a company that has the possibility to produce digital billboards, multimedia kiosks and other technological solutions for Smart Cities, in your opinion, what is the importance of technology in this area?

​A challenge and an opportunity. The great guru of modern communication, the canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, creator of the Global Village, has already said: “the medium is the message”.