Cities around the world are experiencing explosive growth – by 2050 70% of the global population will live in cities – at the same time that new technologies are unlocking massive streams of information. As cities transform, how can we build them into thriving innovative civic laboratories where the forces of urbanization and digitalization collide and new urban entrepreneurs adapt these technologies into products and services that improve global well-being.
Victor Hwang, the Vice President for Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation and co-founder of T2 Venture Creation and Liquidity Corp, is the author of The Rainforest. This groundbreaking and award winning book offers a radical theory for explaining the nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems as human networks that generate extraordinary creativity and output. Challenging the basic assumptions of the economic mainstream, he explains how successful ecosystems thrive when certain cultural behaviors unlock human potential – much like the mysterious mechanisms of vibrant rainforests. He also provides practical tools for designing, building, and sustaining new innovation ecosystems.
Jarmo Eskelinen is the Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at Future Cities Catapult, which advises city leaders on designing strategies for building and renewing infrastructure by integrating a wide array of technologies. In his work, he has come up against three challenges: legacy infrastructure and institutions, speed (lack of broadband), and readiness (for planning and maintaining smart cities). During the session, he shared his experience finding solutions by engaging businesses, universities and city leaders, analyzing data to model and visualize city problems, and running on-the-ground demonstrators that test new approaches and working prototypes in real urban environments.
JF Gauthier, the CEO of Startup Genome and Malavika Kumaran, a Senior Associate at MaRS Data Catalyst, presented the approaches they have taken to assess the entrepreneurial performance of cities. View Malavika Kumaran's Presentation on Slideshare.
Phil Auerswald facilitated audience participation during the session, geared toward learning everyone’s ideas about the challenges and solutions for developing future cities. By crowdsourcing possible new joint studies, GERN seeks to improve everyone’s understanding of what works for building the vibrant entrepreneurial cities of tomorrow.