Melbourne: Future City Summit Launches Australian Urban Insights Series
Leading ideas from emerging city shapers
By the year 2050 we will have added another 2.5 billion people to the world’s cities and more than two thirds of humanity will be living in urban areas (UN DESA 2018). How do we best prepare future city leaders, policy makers, and planning professionals for complexity of challenges ahead?
By nature of the profession, Urban Planners, designers, architects and property professionals intersect with a wide cross section of stakeholders and interest groups. There is a critical need to develop skills as effective communicators around complex issues and topics. For postgraduate students entering into the profession, coursework tends to emphasise theory and evidence based research, yet the opportunities to hone public speaking, presentation, and persuasionsive discourse skills are often limited in formal degree programs.
Future City summit with generous sponsorship from Urbis launched a successful Urban Insights Speaker Series. The pilot event was the first of an ongoing series which will feature five speakers from industry and academia. Having received professional coaching from Jon Yeo, Founder of Brightstar Consulting, each speaker presented a five minute address with their approach to exploring and tackling a complex urban challenge, followed by a brief panel facilitated by Jannie Mcleod, CEO of TEDxMelbourne, for an insightful open discussion.
The event would not have been possible without support from Urbis, the pilot event’s sponsor and host. Urbis is an urban planning consultancy with one simple goal — to shape the cities and communities of Australia for a better future. The company is a creative community of practice experts, working collaboratively to deliver fresh thinking and independent advice and guidance — all backed up by real, evidence-based solutions that cross cut design, policy, heritage, valuations, transactions, economics and research.
Our next event will be sponsored by AECOM in early 2020 so to keep up to date on the program join our community here and follow us on Facebook.
