On October 5, 2017, the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Business School Global Initiative will host “The Future of Cities” in honor of Harvard Worldwide Week, a University-wide series of events showcasing the breadth, depth, and diversity of Harvard’s global work.
What will the city of the future look like? How will contemporary urbanization challenges establish the groundwork for the next generation of innovations? Who will spearhead the investments and institutional arrangements needed to address such issues as sprawl, climate change, socio-spatial inequality, and rapid technological change? This panel showcases a range of experts, innovators, and thought leaders in the fields of technology, infrastructure, and governance of cities. Drawing on experience from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the U.S., panelists will share their views on how best to address the fact that more than 70% of the world’s population is projected to be living in cities by the year 2050 (with close to 90% of the increase coming from Asia and Africa). Debate will revolve around the impacts of intensified urban growth on the basic political, economic, and social arrangements that have come to define cities, as well as on the role of new technologies and infrastructures in modifying urban footprints and quality of life.
Moderator:
John Macomber, Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School
Panelists:
Diane Davis, Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design
John Fernandez, Professor, MIT; Urban Metabolism Group, African Urban Metabolism Network
Christian Irmisch, Principal, Siemens AG, Mobility Division
Stefan Knupfer, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company; Leader, Sustainability Resource Productivity Practice
Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group
Efosa Ojomo, Research Fellow, Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation
Harriet Tregoning, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning and Development, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
The event will be held in the Askwith Lecture Room, Longfellow Hall, 13 Appian Way Cambridge, MA from 3:30-5:30pm. Free and open to the public. More info here.