Systems Innovation for Cities Series

Overview

Very excited to announce a series of events running through March exploring what systems innovation means for cities. During the series, we will be unpacking what urban design, management and development looks like from a complexity perspective and how we may better respond to the wicked problems cities face through systems innovation methods.

Why are we doing it? 

Today we find that many of the urban challenges we face are fundamentally complex, from urban sprawl to climate change to the many other challenges created by the rise of megacities. These kinds of systemic issues require new ways of thinking and new ways of developing cities for which existing approaches are fundamentally lacking in capacity, something different is needed... something more holistic in its approach. In this light, we launch this series to help people understand how a systems approach can help to better tackle the challenges we face in developing sustainable urban environments.

What Will be Happening?

This series will constitute four main events during March and early April along with the sharing of new content and resources. The series aims to be a combination of discussions to explore ideas and exchange experiences as well as workshops to learn how systems innovation tools can be applied to generate actionable new ideas. 

March 3rd - Discussion on Cities Wicked Challenges and Transformational Innovation

In this event - the first of a series - we will be exploring the topic of how systems thinking approaches can help us to better address systemic issues faced by cities. In the 1-hour panel discussion hosted by the Si London hub, we will be joined by Aneta Skubida. Aneta is the Co-founder and Cities Future-proofing expert, former Systems Innovation Design Manager for cities in EIT Climate-KIC. We will also be joined by Stephen Passmore who is the CEO of Resilience brokers. Resilience Brokers takes a holistic approach to systems change, driven by the power of collaboration, innovation, and disruptive technology to address city-region needs globally.

March 16th - Workshop on Rethinking Traffic in Megacities with the Iceberg Model

Traffic is a profound and widespread problem impacting almost every aspect of life in megacities around the world. The traffic problem is a systemic issue resting on interlinked factors such as distorted urbanization, the increase in population, and the increase in the number of vehicles. In this workshop, hosted by Si Istanbul hub we will use the iceberg model to understand the different levels of the issue and how to find and address high leverage points.

Participatory Cities for Resilience and Regeneration 

A participatory city is an approach to urban development and regeneration that aims to engage people in the co-creation of the systems they form part of. In this discussion, we will be exploring the intersection of the idea and practice of participatory cities for urban regeneration and resilience. Our speakers will illustrate how engaging people in the co-creation of their urban space can be both a transformative practice and a regenerate one. More than this we will illustrate how a holistic conception of resilience is in fact predicated upon distributed engagement and widespread participation.

April 5th - Growing Green Cities Workshop

This event will hosted by the Si Amsterdam hub will be a presentation and workshop format using the Ecosystems Thinking canvas to engage participants in the challenge of growing green cities. This will be a hybrid event held on Zoom for our global audience and in Amsterdam in collaboration with the Floriade Expo 2022 - a large Dutch horticultural exposition. 

CoCreation on Participatory Cities 

The final in our series of events will be a CoCreation session where we will ideate on the challenge of: "how might we enable the emergence of truly participatory cities." Taking a workshop format we will use a canvas to map the factors and actors affecting this and how we may influence or change those to realize a more participatory urban environment.  

Outcomes

By following us on this journey we hope that you (and we) will gain a deeper understanding of how the application of a systems paradigm to urban development could enable the emergence of very different outcomes and the kinds of transformational changes needed today. We would also hope that through the workshops, discussions, and CoCreation you would gain ideas that can be readily applied in your works.