What does it mean to be a start-up founder? Why do so many start-ups fail and how exactly can you avoid failure? Astrid Schrader answered these questions at our first Urban Talks event and helped the audience with advice for surviving the start-up frenzy that has taken over the entire world in recent years. Astrid Schrader …
The world has agreed that it has to change, fundamentally, in order to successfully accommodate the urbanization wave that is to come in the next few decades. Urban innovation has to be advanced, along with the integrating capacities of the cities, to achieve the ideal smart city of the future. Future Cities Catapult has just …
The “Urban Investment Support” was recently launched by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank with the aim of helping cities plan investments. Consequently, their urban development strategies would be supported and there would be easier access to financing. Precisely this access to financing remains one of the biggest issues that cities have to …
At the moment, Romania has more than 800 thousand disabled people, while the current Europe-wide number of 80 million people is expected to reach around 120 million in the next couple of years. Less than a third of these people are born with a certain disability, while about 60% of them have disabilities that have …
The Anglican Church of Hong Kong has just been offered an Award of Excellence by UNESCO, in its Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation. The project called “The Blue House Cluster Project” is the first of its kind to win this UNESCO award, mainly due to its extensive preservation efforts. In this sense, both the …
An unprecedented global urbanization is expected in the next few decades and it is upon us now, upon all of us, to make cities better and more accessible, to invest in them, to believe in them and to improve their integrating capacities. Undoubtedly, there is a growing number of challenges that urban dwellers have to …
The European Commission organized its annual “European Capital of Innovation Award” and out of the 32 cities that applied, the winner was announced on 7 November at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. Due to its unique innovative spirit, usually implemented through projects such as the world’s largest start-up campus, the innovation arc or urban farms, …
We are all familiar with the catch-phrase “Think global, act local”. This remarkable TED Talk (found below) is the perfect representation of that, placed in a larger frame that Majora Carter calls “local eco-entrepreneurship”. She argues for smart infrastructure, for healthy local economic systems and for “hometown security”, using the example of three practical visionaries across …
Industrial robots are taking over more and more processes within big companies, accelerating the automation trend. China, the world leader in buying industrial robots since 2013, has just surpassed Japan in the number of total operating robots. Moreover, automation of tasks is not only adopted by manufacturers, but also by online shopping companies. Alibaba is …
Looking for a way to provide you with a thorough account of the experience we had organizing Connecting Doers with Opportunity in Timișoara, we stumbled upon a personal blog post of our friend, Mihaela Ivan. Thinking that we could not possibly offer a better description, and realizing that Mihaela managed to convey perfectly the vibe …