CAPE TOWN, 23 NOVEMBER 2015
Future Cape Town, Future Lagos cover 5 cities in one month, spark collaborations
- Director of Our Future Cities and Future Cape Town, Rashiq Fataar presented at the The Smart City Expo World Congress 2015 in Barcelona a world-leading smart city congress gathering more than 300 innovative and smart city thinkers and welcomed 14,000 visitors
- Future Cape Town Senior Researcher, Brett Petzer presented at the 7th International Mobility Forum in Medellin with more than 1200 in attendance
- Director of Future Lagos, Olamide Udoma joined discussions at The Festival of the Future City held in Bristol, England
Rashiq Fataar, founder and director of Future Cape Town and Our Future Cities presented a talk at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.
- The Smart City Expo World Congress 2015, entitled Join the Urban Intervention, is a world-leading smart city congress gathering more than 300 innovative and smart city thinkers.
- The Congress is being held at the Gran Via Venue in Barcelona from Tuesday 17 November to Thursday 19 November.
- Fataar was invited to speak at a session entitled Democratic Forms of Participation and Platforms to Engage and Empower Citizens on Thursday 19 November at 11h30.
In Barcelona, Rashiq Fataar was invited to the The Smart City Expo World Congress 2015 in Barcelona to participate in a session under the Society theme entitled Democratic forms of participation and platforms to engage and empower citizens. His talk entitled, ‘building a democracy in Cape Town: the work of Future Cape Town’ covered the organisations’ experience and lessons over 5 years in promoting new methods of public engagement and access in urbanism.
Smart City Expo World Congress 2015 presents a new integrated urban agenda revolving around six themes: technology, society, governance, sustainability, mobility and innovation & startups by 4YFN.
Fataar says: “It is an exciting time when the experience of our team can be shared across the world, and help to foster dialogue and collaborations in other cities. There is much that Cape Town, Barcelona, Medellin and Bristol can learn from each other – and at the same time we can expand our advisory services and partnerships to new areas.”
Along with Fataar on this panel, other esteemed speakers include Hila Oren, Founder & CEO of Tel Aviv Global, Lawrence Lai, Mayor of Miri City Council, Matteo Kalchschmidt, Professor at the University of Bergamo, and Renato Lucio De Castro Junior, DBA Candidate at the Maastricht School of Management.
Visit the website of the Congress for more information on the program and speakers: http://www.smartcityexpo.com/en/home, and follow the conversation on twitter with @smartcityexpo and the #SCEWC15 hashtag.
Brett Petzer, Senior Researcher for Future Cape Town, presented a talk at the 7th International Mobility Forum in Medellin.
- The Forum took place between Wednesday 11 and Friday 13 November, with academic presentations on the second day of the proceedings and workshops and tours running on the first and third days.
- Experts from Mexico, Argentina and Colombia presented their work alongside Petzer, with more than 1200 in attendance. Noteworthy at this event were the efforts undertaken by the Municipality of Medellín to ensure audience participation: while Petzer’s speech was in English, all 1200 attendees followed in Spanish over earphones, thanks to the services of simultaneous translators.
- Petzer’s talk, entitled Peatones después del apartheid: Recorriendo la ciudad dividida (Pedestrians after Apartheid: reconnecting the divided city) focussed on the links between the mobility paradigms pioneered in recent years in Medellín, and similar efforts in South Africa and Cape Town.
The Forum offers an academic space for reflection on pedestrian and non-motorized mobility. Of particular interest, particularly for FCT, were the very great similarities between urban spaces in the highly income-unequal societies of South America – replete with gated communities, car-dependent sprawl, and extreme spatial inequality.
According to Petzer, “Coming from Cape Town, it was compelling to see how much Medellín had achieved in twenty years of social urbanism, with comparable budgets and a comparable post-conflict history. Real social changes, in attitudes and behaviour, have been fostered through visionary investment in mobility and social infrastructure. If they can do it, we can do it, and we should be doing it”.
FCT was invited to the forum by a Medellín-based organisation, La Ciudad Verde, with whom more collaborations are planned in the future; we share a similar vision and strategic focus with the passionate people at La Ciudad Verde and are greatly inspired by the achievements they have managed to bring about on a volunteer basis.
Along with Petzer, other esteemed speakers include Enrique José Nates from Colombia, Rodrigo Diaz from Mexico, Jorge Alberto Pérez from Colombia, Sergio Sanchez from Mexico and Germán Bussi from Argentina.
Visit https://www.medellin.gov.co/movilidad for more information on the programme.
Olamide Udoma, director of Future Lagos presented a talk at the Festival of the Future City in Bristol, England.
- The Festival of Future Cities was held in Bristol, England at the Watershed and at Wills Memorial Building, University of Bristol from Tuesday 17 November to Friday 20 November.
- Udoma was invited to speak on two sessions; one The Future of World Cities (1) on Wednesday 18 November, and the second entitled Playable City: International on Thursday 19 November.
The Festival of the Future City will be bringing together academics, city planners, artists, writers, filmmakers, games makers, architects, politicians, journalists and commentators, poets, community leaders, businesses, scientists, think tanks and others to debate the future city with the public.
Udoma was invited to speak at two separate occasion during the Festival: First during a session entitled The Future of World Cities (1) where she presented a talk entitled Lagos and its future. The next day, Udoma presented a talk entitled Playable City in Lagos during the Playable City: International session.
Udoma says ‘The playable city concept is one that is exciting and brings a lot of possibilities for engagement and dialogue between people who live, work and play in Lagos and the city spaces. To be able to present the Lagos context, give examples of real life experiences and put forward how the future of Lagos is imagined by the people who live there is where the conversation will leapfrog from.’
Visit the website of the Festival for more information on the program and speakers: http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/seasons/festival-future-city/ and join the debate on Twitter @festivalofideas #futurecity15.
Future Cape Town is always looking for more opportunity to export their knowledge, present their work and learn from others cities in the world. Follow our journey on our website futurecapetown.com and don’t hesite to send us a email at hello@futurecapetown.com if you hear of an opportunity for us.
-ENDS-
For more information contact Media and Communications Officer Christine Dalle-Vedove at +27 79 117 2740 or christine@futurecapetown.com
Notes to editors:
- Our Future Cities NPO is a registered independent non-profit organisation working to expanded democracy around the future of cities. Read more here. Future Cape Town is the founding movement of Our Future Cities NPO, which also houses Future Johannesburg and Future Lagos.
- Follow our social media platforms: Twitter here, Facebook here, and Instagram here.
- The Foro Internacional de Movilidad de Medellín website can be found here. The La Ciudad Verde website can be found here. The Smart City Expo World Congress website can be found here.