By 2050 nearly 70% of the world population will live in cities. This means that the future of human settlement is in cities. Cities indeed are facing unprecedented challenges such as climate change, inclusivity, digitalisation, decentralisation, sustainability and last but not least resilience. The rise of urbanisation also means the rise of network effect whereby cities’ success and failure stories both can impact other cities and trigger the whole network of global cities to either grow or fail.
While the majority of urbanisation dialogue focus is placed in the rapid rate of urbanisation as a whole, it is crucial to take into account the rapid rate of urban displacements often caused by factors that deteriorate liveability of cities. These include and not limited to war, poor infrastructure, political upheaval, and last but not least climate change. In the current times, where the Ukrainian cities are destroyed by the Russian invasion, millions of people are forced to flee their homes due to the global crisis. On the other hand, the war in Ukraine and the damage and trauma inflicted on the nation is happening while the world is still recovering from the debilitating impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and battling with the increasing rate of climate refugees around the world.
The destruction of cities of Ukraine sends a cascading wave of reflection on the present and future fate of cities around the world. With each city destroyed, we lose a precious piece of the marvellous story of human settlement and evolution. Major cities in Ukraine are destroyed by the Russian invasion, leading to the loss of not only innocent lives but also loss of culture, civilisation, arts, infrastructure, and years of scientific and technological investment. The destruction of Ukrainian Cities is indeed deeply traumatic for all cities around the world.
Cities are places where civilisations form, active citizenship is born and urban identity and civil rights are made. In these contexts, the heroic resistance of Ukrainian citizens in preserving the integrity of their cities, opens up an opportunity for an urgent global dialogue on the diverse range of urban challenges around the world including the meaning of cities, active citizenship, urban identity, the use of technology for global urban good, the role of governance in decentralised world, and last but not least the impact of private sectors in shaping present and future of global urban community.
A member of the Ukrainian Emergency Service surveys damage to Kharkiv's City Hall in the city's central square following shelling Tuesday, March 1. Pavel Dorogoy/AP
At TAI/T we provide powerful smart city therapeutic solutions to cities around the world. Our mission is to heal cities from their previous maladaptations and while steering them towards the best possible transformative avenues of resilience, sustainability and thriving.
We do this by combining both hard tech such as AI, blockchain, tokenisation with soft tech such as mindfulness, meditation and collective healing as well as systemic roadmaps and toolkits.
As all therapies begin with dialogue and active listening, our therapeutic solutions also start with global conversation and engaged listening around smart cities and related topics.
In this event, we are joined by world leading entrepreneurs and experts on smart cities, urban geopolitics, privacy in digital age, AI ethics and change leadership.
Join the dialogue,
TAI/T Team.