10/07/2025
✨ Honored & Grateful: Building Cities of Happiness ✨
We are deeply humbled and proud to share that Luis Miguel Gallardo and the World Happiness Foundation have been awarded the Sustainable Impact – Community Builder award at Smart City Expo Miami.
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This recognition means more than a trophy. It is an affirmation of a deeply held conviction: smart cities must be happy cities — that is, cities that place the well-being of people at the heart of transformation, not just technology.
Why this matters
At Smart City Expo Miami, the conversation is often about infrastructure, data, mobility, connectivity — which are essential. But our message is that happiness metrics, human flourishing, community cohesion, and emotional well-being must be elevated to equal standing.
As I said during the event: “We don’t want smart but unhappy cities. The smartest cities are those that put people’s happiness first.”
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In awarding us “Community Builder,” the jury recognized that change is not just in hardware or software — it lies in relationships, culture, and shared purpose.
Our “Cities of Happiness” vision: connecting schools & enterprises
This award energizes and legitimizes our work with the Cities of Happiness program, which seeks to bridge community systems — especially schools and enterprises — into a unified ecosystem of well-being.
Schools of Happiness:
The children and youth of our cities will inherit the future. Through this initiative, we partner with schools to embed emotional intelligence, resilience, compassionate leadership, purpose learning, and positive psychology into curricula and culture. The aim is that students don’t just graduate “smart,” but also fulfilled, connected, and resilient.
Enterprises of Happiness:
Organizations shape daily lives. When businesses adopt well-being-first strategies — caring for employee mental health, creating meaning, building community — they become engines of positive transformation. In our model, happy enterprises reinforce happy communities, and vice versa.
By linking schools and enterprises under the umbrella of Cities of Happiness, we create feedback loops:
Healthier workplaces support their employees who are also parents, neighbors, and community leaders.
Children who grow through happiness-oriented schools carry that mindset into households and future workplaces.
Culture, policies, design, and infrastructure then align around well-being, not just efficiency.
Looking forward: what this award inspires us to do
This award is a milestone — not a destination. It propels us forward to:
Expand the Cities of Happiness pilot to more municipalities
Deepen our partnerships with educational systems, local governments, and private sector leaders
Build tools, metrics, and dashboards that mix traditional "smart city" KPIs with happiness, belonging, mental health, social capital
Nurture a global network of Community Builders who lead from the inside out
To all the communities, leaders, educators, and changemakers who share this vision — thank you. This is our shared win. Together, we are co-creating cities where well-being is not an afterthought but the guiding star.
