Future Cities Forum

Our cities are increasingly powered, influenced, or controlled by algorithms, driven by rapid advances in ‘smart city’ technologies with incredible potential for disruption.

But incredible disruption can mean the displacement of old powers as much as it can mean the displacement of the disadvantaged? How will we work together to weather the disruption ahead? As the city gets smarter, how will we manage this ‘intelligence’? Will the algorithmic city eliminate or perpetuate bias, prejudice, and inequality? Will these new technologies be an invisible force creating a new sustainable city or will it be a machine world almost unrecognizable to us? The reality of the future city will, most likely, be neither dreamland nor nightmare, but some complicated in between.

The Future Cities Forum was not about making a prediction, but preparing to be a part of the inevitable change ahead. We wanted you to ask the question, in the city of the future what role will I play?

The Forum kicked off with an evening of keynote speakers such as Ken Greenberg, Tracey Lauriault, and Madeline Ashby who shared their speculations on future cities in the context of emerging and disruptive technologies, which was open to the public. The second day was a more hands-on and experiential, aimed at a curated audience of young professionals – talented individuals who will be in positions of leadership and influence in the coming years and decades – to help equip them with the knowledge, networks, and collective capacity to better understand the social and cultural implications of smart cities and their inevitable disruptions to the way we live, work, and play.

Click here to download the report from the Future Cities Forum.