Ignasi Fontanals is a strategist in urban resilience, crisis and business continuity management, currently focused on the digitalisation of resilient urban services. Working at the intersection of circular economy, smart city innovation, climate resilience, and SME preparedness, he has helped companies and city stakeholders design more robust services, tools, and business models.

Building on previous entrepreneurial experience in Tech4Resilience, including the co-founding of a pioneering Barcelona-based university spin-off, he later created Resilient Systems Hub (RSH) as a platform to explore new approaches and digital solutions to improve resilience in the face of disruptions.

He is also promoting the Resilience Alliance for SMEs, an emerging initiative from the Barcelona ecosystem focused on strengthening SME preparedness and business continuity, with a particular focus on developing a resilience recognition framework or seal that can help SMEs demonstrate their preparedness to banks, insurers, and the wider financial sector.

Fontanals recently collaborated with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) on Barcelona’s implementation of the global Strengthening SME Resilience project, which also ran pilots in Bridgetown and Sendai. He supported the development of methodologies, training formats, business continuity tools, and crisis exercises for SMEs.

He has also contributed to a major European innovation project pioneering urban climate resilience with a focus on water, and has gained experience with Canadian, French, and German technology companies. He collaborates with academic and innovation ecosystems as an invited lecturer and speaker on smart cities, urban resilience, and continuity planning.

His contribution to Venice Climate Week builds on this experience at the crossroads of urban resilience, business continuity, digital transformation, and climate adaptation.