GLOBAL CITIES SUMMIT
Getting on Track: Sustainable and Inclusive Prosperity for Cities

1. Senator Art Eggleton, Senate Canada, Toronto, Canada
2. Elder Mike Ormsby, Toronto, Canada
3. Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, City of Toronto, Toronto Canada
4. Paul Young, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
5. Patricia McCarney, Global City Indicators Facility, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

At present, cities are economic engines that are responsible for more than 70% of the world’s GDP. This panel focuses on how cities are changing and framing the prosperity agenda. Panelists will discuss how competitiveness is being achieved by cities and what challenges exist for achieving both a more sustainable and an inclusive prosperity.

CHAIR: Calvin Lantz, Stikeman Elliott LLP, Toronto Canada

SPEAKERS:

1. Mayor Osama Fadli Al-Bar, Holy City of Makkah, Saudi Arabia
2. Martin Powell, Siemens AG, London, United Kingdom
3. Michael Williams, Economic Development & Culture, City of Toronto, Toronto Canada
4. Gora Mboup, UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya
5. Qian Zhi, Development Research Center of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China
6. Vicente Guallart, Barcelona City Council, Barcelona, Spain

Until just a few years ago, the international standards world was not directly concerned with cities. The Technical Committee on Sustainable Development in Communities (ISO TC268) is pioneering this work and developing a series of standards for a holistic approach to sustainable development in cities and communities. The world of standardization is changing rapidly with respect to cities and this panel will consider what this means for cities, industry, infrastructure, investment and for the world of city metrics.

CHAIR: Patricia McCarney, Global City Indicators Facility (GCIF), Global Cities Institute (GCI), University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

SPEAKERS:

1. Jacques Lair, International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) TC268 Sustainable Development in Communities, Paris, France
2. Bernard Leservoisier, International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) TC268 & TC268 WG1 Management Systems, AFNOR Group Standardization, Paris, France
3. Jose-Luis Hernandez, International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) TC268 WG2 City Indicators, Canadian Standards Association, Toronto, Canada
4. Helen Ng, Global City Indicators Facility (GCIF), University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
5. Isao Endou, International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) TC268 & SC1, Tokyo, Japan

DISCUSSANTS:

6. Joseph Pennachetti, City of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
7. Nico Tillie, City of Rotterdam & Delft University of Technology, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
8. Dave Welsh, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, USA

Smart Cities and Sustainable Cities are terms with growing traction globally and locally. This panel focuses on how cities, leading global corporations, together with international agencies are forging partnerships to develop innovations, integrate smart technology and sustainable practices to enhance economic prosperity and environmental sustainability to improve overall quality of life for city residents.

CHAIR: Mila Freire, World Bank & Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, USA

SPEAKERS:

1. Harry Verhaar, Philips Lighting, Riethoven, The Netherlands
2. Ron Baker, IBM, Austin, USAv
3. Rick Huijbregts, Cisco Canada, Toronto, Canada
4. Michael Jansen, Cityzenith, Menlo Park, USA
5. Shanfeng Dong, Bluepath City Consulting, Beijing, China
6. Helen Santiago Fink, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Paris, France
7. Matthew Lynch, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland

SPEAKERS:

1. Joseph Pennachetti, City of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
2. Robert Hardt, Siemens Canada Ltd., Toronto, Canada

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, New York City, USA

Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-Chair of the Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University. Professor Sassen has received diverse awards, from multiple doctor honoriscausa to being chosen as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy (2011) and winner of the Principe de Asturias Prize for the Social Sciences (2013). She is also a Senior Fellow of the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto, Canada.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ (FCM’s) Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brock Carlton, has a commitment to strong municipal government and believes that a national municipal association is critical to national and local development. Since joining FCM 21 years ago, Mr. Carlton has channeled his leadership abilities towards local government issues domestically and internationally. As CEO he has focused on a collaborative organizational culture and enhanced member engagement as pillars of FCM’s success.

This panel will address the complex and interrelated challenges of contemporary city building and design in a global context. Panellists will explore strategies ranging from the design of transit networks and hubs, the role of the built environment in affecting public health and disease, planning and design for urban intensification and conservation, housing investment as a poverty alleviating measure, and the changing worlds of work, technology and the design of place. These highly interrelated strategies offer insight into alternative futures and city transformations and create new possibilities for city to city exchange and networking.

CHAIR: Anne McIlroy, Brook McIlroy, Toronto, Canada

SPEAKERS:

1. Nico Tillie, City of Rotterdam & Delft University of Technology, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2. Andrew Laing, AECOM, New York City, USA
3. Mohamed El-Sioufi, UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya
4. Gillian Booth, St. Michael’s Hospital & University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
5. Leslie Woo, Metrolinx, Toronto, Canada
6. Roger Sherman, cityLAB& UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
7. Richard Sommer, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Cities are confronting a wider and wider range of risks, especially witnessed in the growing number of extreme weather events and natural disasters in recent years, impacting the lives of people and the economies of cities. What policies, tools, technologies and infrastructure solutions are becoming available to address risk, measure and improve energy efficiency and build more resilient cities? What is the emerging science on cities to build resilience?

CHAIR: Lucy Casacia, Siemens Canada Limited, Oakville, Canada

SPEAKERS:

1. Violeta Seva, City of Makati, Makati, Philippines
2. Zhao Jun, Shanghai Municipal Commission of City Development and Transport, Shanghai, China
3. Niels Van Duinen, Philips Lighting, Burlington, USA
4. Carl Bodimeade, Hatch Mott MacDonald & Ontario Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure, Niagara Falls, Canada
5. Michinaga Kohno, Michi Creative City Designers Inc., Tokyo, Japan
6. Chris Kennedy, University of Toronto & International Society for Industrial Ecology, Toronto, Canada
7. Dan Hoornweg, University of Ontario Institute of Technology & Government of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

Doug Saunders, The Globe and Mail Newspaper, Toronto, Canada

Doug Saunders is a columnist for the Globe and Mail's international-affairs column, and also serves as the Newspaper's online opinion and debate editor. He has extensive experience as a foreign correspondent, having run the Globe's foreign bureaus in Los Angeles and London. He has published two books:

1. Arrival City (2010)
2. The Myth of the Muslim Tide (2012)

In conversation with George Baird, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

CHAIR: Nico Tillie, City of Rotterdam & Delft University of Technology, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

With 70% of the world population expected to reside in cities by 2050, the need for city-level data to inform city management has never been greater. City data is critical to inform political policy, innovation, technology adoption and transformative futures. The Global City Indicators Facility, created in 2008, provides a set of city indicators prioritized by cities, with a globally standardized methodology that allows for global comparability of city performance and knowledge sharing. The GCIF, beginning with 9 pilot cities, has now developed into a global network of over 255 cities across 81 countries. Building on these core indicators of the GCIF, this work has evolved into a new ISO Standard (ISO 37120) and the concurrent creation of the World Council on City Data.

This Cities Panel opens a discussion from GCIF member cities, old and new, together with new cities joining the World Council on City Data, on the importance of globally standardized city data, raising examples for the audience on how cities are using these standardized indicators for policy planning and decision making, and addressing how globally standardized city data facilitates learning across cities and knowledge exchange for innovation.

SPEAKERS:

Part 1: City Perspective

1. Dr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Haiphong City People's Council, Haiphong, Vietnam
2. Eng. Ahmed Hussain Alkhlagi, City of Makkah & Makkah Urban Observatory, Makkah (Mecca), Saudi Arabia
3. Ari Jaakola, City of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
4. Tinashe Mushayanyama, City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
5. Eng. Abdulrahman Alsultan, City of Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
6. Eng. Hadia Gad Mosoud, City of Sohag, Sohag, Egypt

Part 2: City Conversation

7. Dr. Abdul Husaini, Niger State, Minna, Nigeria
8. Mary Luz Pinzon, City of Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia
9. Fernando Alvarez de Celis, Ministry of Urban Development, Buenos Aires, Argentina
10. Irene Del Rosario, City of San Jose Del Monte, Philippines
11. Eng. Akram Khraisat, City of Amman, Jordan

Cities are in a transformative stage, and are pivotal actors and growing partners in the world of technology, information and innovation. The complexity of governing cities and the challenges therein have never been greater. City leaders are being asked to look outward globally and consider economic competitiveness, to adopt technologies to manage this complexity, to become “smarter” while also balancing the diverse needs of different cultural, socioeconomic, and demographic groups in their cities and to create fair societies wherein the quality of day to day living is assured. A singular approach no longer suffices and fragmentation across sectors fails to address the complexity of cities. How do cities collaborate, innovate, and integrate for effective governance?

CHAIR: Andrew Storey, Scotiabank, Toronto, Canada

SPEAKERS:

1. Dr. Mu’Azu Babangida Aliyu, Niger State, Nigeria
2. Dr. Abdul Husaini, Niger State, Minna, Nigeria
3. Maarten Hajer, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague & University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4. Richard Stren, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
5. Riadh Tappuni, Toronto, Canada & Beirut, Lebanon
6. Noah Toly, Wheaton College, Wheaton, USA
7. Alan Broadbent, Maytree & Avana Capital Corporation, Toronto, Canada