City Science Summit Guadalajara 2020
The Power of WITHOUT
hosted virtually by the University of Guadalajara
The 2020 City Science Summit was hosted by the University of Guadalajara (UdeG), the newest member of the City Science Network. The summit theme: The Power of WITHOUT, was a continuation of the theme from the 2019 Hamburg summit Cities WITHOUT and encouraged the speakers and audience to imagine a future without increasingly heavy weight and obsolete infrastructure and with lightweight autonomous systems. Unlike the 2019 summit, however, the participants were asked to consider this theme specifically in the context of Latin America. This new context allows the team to consider past themes, research directives, and models in a new setting with its own set of unique challenges and opportunities. Over the three day summit, guests were invited to main stage talks featuring a diverse set of speakers from world renowned architects, to experts in urban planning, to government officials and academics, to artists and even to the voices from various informal settlements. Participants met and discussed in 15 workshops hosted by the various members of the City Science Network ranging in topic from Health WITHOUT Hospitals, to Companies WITHOUT Offices, to Communities WITHOUT Boundaries. Creative content was interspersed as well. All in all, the 2020 summit with it’s unique virtual participation was one of the best attended events thus far and also one of the most diverse, including many students from the various network countries and new voices from Mexico and beyond.
Main Stage
The Main Stage event brought together a diverse group of speakers to discuss the future of our cities. The event was presented entirely online allowing many to tune in live for the premiere and others to watch the content in the following weeks. The event, titled The Power of WITHOUT, included themes on Form, including Lord Norman Foster, Frida Escobedo and Eduardo Lopez Moreno, Trust, including Tenzin Priyadarshi, Maria Salguero, and Sandy Pentland and Together featuring Hashim Sarkis and Gabriela Bila among others. Learn more about speakers and view time stamps of the talks here.
Workshops
The City Science Network hosted a series of virtual workshops which spanned the three day event. Workshop themes covered key topics in resilience, livable communities, lightweight mobility, data enabled decision making, virtual collaboration, new live/work spaces, and trust. Workshop hosts included network members: The University of Guadalajara, City Science MIT, HafenCity University, Ryerson University, Taipei Tech, Tongji University, The Andorra Innovation Hub and Aalto University and guests from: Circulo de Amigos, the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL and the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, El Punto, speakers from Tsinghua University and the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, and Human Dynamics MIT.
Creative Content
Guests were also welcome to attend a book launch hosted by HafenCity University, a film screening of February 27th by Maire-Therese Jakoubek, virtual coffee breaks, virtual happy hours, and a Pass the Mic session that featured music and art presented by our global network.
In addition, the University of Guadalajara created a virtual reality platform showcasing their Cultural Center and allowing participants to virtually visit the event and engage in event content in a digital format. Note: To view the full event, download the app on your phone or tablet.
Both the MIT teams and the UdeG teams were happy with the output of the summit. The event organizers started planning only a few months before as options for an in-person or virtual event kept planning up in the air for some time. That said, the teams felt that the virtual platform allowed more people to attend then normally would, and lent itself particularly well to the international City Science Network noticing that students from around the world attended, including many who would not have been able to attend an in person event. At the close of the event, the UdeG team moved to continue plans for their City Science Lab which will be in the Cultural Center of the University, a vibrant hub which includes a library, museum, amphitheater, multiple stages and the Museum of the Environment. City Science Network labs mentioned that they would enjoy attending a future workshop hosted by the University of Guadalajara when their new lab is complete, to further understand and be immersed in the Mexican experience, and to further build network connections and collaborations.
