Eduardo Paes

I don't want to compare my city to Zurich; thank God we're not that boring. Rio is advancing fast, but we're at a different phase in our civilization.

Don't ever in your life do a World Cup and the Olympic Games at the same time. This will make your life almost impossible.

By 2050, seven out of ten people will live in cities, which will account for six billion people living in urban areas. That phenomenon is central to all the challenges humanity faces. If there is an issue to be addressed, then it is certainly happening in cities and therefore must be considered on an urban scale.

In Rio we built a Center of Operations, a situation room that gathers information from municipal departments and allows us to manage and help decision-making. I can check the weather, the traffic and the location of city's waste collection trucks. Each of 4,000 buses in the city has a camera connected to the situation room.

I really do believe that mayors have the political position to really change people's lives.

I strongly believe being mayor is the public post in which you have the greatest opportunity to change peoples' lives for the better. People live in cities, not states or nations. As a mayor, you are connected directly to citizens.

Rio is an energetic, vibrant place, full of beauty and nature. But we face the kinds of problems any developing metropolis does - with pollution, traffic congestion, poverty. Distribution of green areas, for example, is not uniform. Madureira, the heart of the suburb in Rio, is a concrete jungle.

Every time you think of a city, you have to think green, green, green. Every time you see concrete jungle, you must find open spaces. And when you find open spaces, make it so people can get to them.

There is no time and space in the digital world. People chat and collaborate through social networks. Cultural icons garner millions of fans online in locations they have often never been themselves. The boundary between public and private life is now everyone's business.

There is no time and space limitation for public accountability on the Internet. Creative commonality is standard and does not resemble the authoritarian style of the dead communist experience. It seems that it is no longer society's obligation to understand legislation; it is a duty for governments to be understood by their people.

What we are witnessing is the birth of something I call 'Polisdigitocracy.' This is a form of government that counts participation and transparency as its cornerstones and uses technology as its guide. The digital revolution is allowing democracy to recall its foundations and evolution is modernizing and reinforcing our fundamental values.

Hosting the Olympic Games of course guarantees the world's attention, but there is more to it than simply bathing in the global spotlight. Most importantly, host cities can use the opportunity to create a positive and lasting legacy, resulting in both tangible and intangible returns to local communities.