Andrés de León, Hyperloop | Getting Your Mobility Solutions Funded
The EU Green Deal objectives cannot be achieved without innovators and solution providers. Yet, entrepreneurs sometimes struggle to find the right funding sources to turn their ideas into reality. In this session, institutional and private investors will shed light on the current funding landscape, and successful entrepreneurs will share their experience with getting funded. What can we learn from high-performing start-ups and scale-ups? How can innovators connect with investors to maximise their impact?
Lucy Sadler | Urban Improvement with Vehicular Access Regulations
Improving air quality is key to more liveable urban spaces, and a priority for many European cities. The transition to a zero-emission transport sector is needed to achieve this goal. Across Europe, schemes to reduce traffic pollution such as low-emission zones (LEZ) have multiplied, and more are planned in the future. What specific aspects need to be considered when planning and implementing LEZ? Are cities ready for the increasing number of electric vehicles?
Gunter Pauli: The Blue Economy, a Portfolio of Opportunities
The Blue Economy transforms innovations into novel business models. How to communicate underwater using ultrasound. How to remove microplastics from seawater like our lungs extract CO2 from our blood. How to produce hydrogen from seawater at a third of the cost. How to forecast the weather measuring water density. How to capture wind power at altitudes using robotics and AI securing baseload power… are only a few of the breakthroughs that are the basis of a portfolio of new business models that can very turn into the industries of the 21st century.
Engaging Citizens for a Collective Future
Collaboration and co-creation for a better quality of life, well-being, development, and governance is the ultimate approach for trust-building and decision-making. How are cities tackling their main development and equity challenges? What is the role of citizens’ engagement and collaboration in this process?
Jim Walker, Walk21 Foundation | New Ways to Achieve Gender Equality in Transport
A growing body of evidence points to the differences between men and women travel patterns and mode usage. While it is common to consider urban transport to be gender-neutral, transport planning is unconsciously biased towards traditional male travel patterns and modes. What are the structural gender differences and mobility patterns resulting from them? How can they be best taken into account by cities and urban planners?
Heather Allen, Median SRL | New Ways to Achieve Gender Equality in Transport
A growing body of evidence points to the differences between men and women travel patterns and mode usage. While it is common to consider urban transport to be gender-neutral, transport planning is unconsciously biased towards traditional male travel patterns and modes. What are the structural gender differences and mobility patterns resulting from them? How can they be best taken into account by cities and urban planners?
Benjamin Büttner | Accessibility and Inclusiveness: Drivers of New Urban Mobility
Debates on the inclusiveness of urban space have been gaining attention with compelling mobility concepts such as the 15mn city. Centred around principles such as accessibility, proximity, or tactical urbanism, these concepts call for an overhaul of how public space is distributed in cities – and could completely reset urban mobility systems. How far are cities from implementing this vision? What are priorities areas that should be addressed to get there? What opportunities can be expected from street redesign and public realm transformations?
BlueTech Innovation: Technology Meets Sustainability
This session will show some cutting-edge examples of startups implementing technology for ocean sustainability. An overview of different nature-based solutions to tackle some of the most important challenges we are facing to reach a sustainable development, as well as a restoration of ocean natural capital.
How Can Society Get Involved with the Ocean and its Sustainability?
Cities around the world are already urging the necessity of tackling the effects of the climate emergency. Coastal areas are even more vulnerable as their damages are evident: rising sea levels and temperature, acidification, plastic pollution, etc. What are the most urgent challenges we are facing? How can coastal cities become resilient? What will it take? What is the role citizens play? This session aims to answer these and more questions by combining ecology, scientific understanding and awareness efforts to make society become part of the solution through education and engagement.
Emily Penn: Navigating Our Way Towards A Plastic-Free Ocean
Emily Penn, skipper and ocean advocate, will share her adventures of a decade at sea. From rounding the globe on a record-breaking bio-fuelled boat to discovering oceanic “gyres” – huge areas of plastic accumulation. Emily co-founded eXXpedition on a mission to help people understand the true problem of ocean plastic pollution, so they can use their skills to solve it from sea to source.