On 24 August 2013, Future Cape Town hosted its second mini-conference under the theme OPEN CITY at Cape Town City Hall, as part of the Open Design Festival.
Attended by close to 100 delegates, the mini-conference featured speakers presenting projects and ideas which could make Cape Town a more ‘Open’ city, as well as an ‘urban workshop hour’ and panel discussion.
OPEN CITY, trended both in Cape Town and South Africa, much like our first mini-conference Bold City, again an indication of the power of social media, collaboration and the interest the public has in events, topics, and projects of this nature.
Some statistics from the event include:
- 283,000 social media accounts reached
- 2.3 million impressions
- 137 contributors on social media
Presenters included an array of thought leaders and professionals including:
- Marcela Guerrero of Open Streets
- Andrew Fleming of of Cape Town Partnership
- Bonita Bennett of District Six Museum
- Mokena Makeka of Makeka Design Lab
- Ralph Borland of ralphborland.net
- Frank Cummings of Regenco
Panelists included Vuyisa Qabaka, Chris Whelan, Rudi Botha, Rory Williams and Rashiq Fataar, who debated the important elements and processes needed to make Cape Town a more ‘open’ city.
Says Rashiq Fataar: “From the importance of streets in public life, to the role of architecture in fostering an open society, or even the need for open accountability in local government budgets, our OPEN CITY 2013 mini-conference challenged us to think more broadly about the idea of an ‘Open City’. What we have learnt from the presentations and workshops is that there is no blanket solution, but that we need to spotlight and support multiple projects and stakeholders who are committed to processes and platforms which enable a more inclusive, welcoming and accessible city. If cities are places of interactions then platforms to support the interaction of people, new ideas and opportunities are at the core of what we should be aiming for.”
One of the key success of the event, was the Urban Workshop hour, which saw delegate in breakaway groups, tackling the challenges of various projects and organisations currently in Cape Town. These topics included Open Streets Cape Town, Future Tyger, Save Princess Vlei, Your City Idea installation and Inner City Housing.
We would like to thank the Open Design Festival team, the V&A Market on the Wharf, Echo Ledge Productions for capturing the event, our MC Andres de Wet as well those who donated towards the organisation.
Notes to Editors
1. Future Cape Town is a non-profit think tank advocating for progressive urbanism and the future of our cities. http://futurecapetown.com/about-us/
2. Photos of the event can be found here.
3. Watch a clip from our previous mini-conference: Bold City here.
Media Office, Future Cape Town
+27 21 424 2234
2.3 million impressions where? This is a pretty vague stat…
How are those stats being measured?