Fab, resilient, circular or sharing cities: beyond buzzwords, what can networks of cities achieve?

Next week I will moderate an interesting panel during the Ouishare Fest: Fab, resilient, circular or sharing cities: beyond buzzwords, what can networks of cities achieve?

The speakers of the panel are

– Olivia Armenta, Associate Director, City Relationships, 100 Resilient Cities
– Tomas Diez, Instigator Fabcity and director of Fab Lab Barcelona.
– Maja Johannessen, Gov. & Cities Programme Associate, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
– Samantha van den Bos, Share.be

About the panel:

Virtual or physical, local or international, general or specific, networks are emerging as new forms of creative and productive organizations able to handle great stakes of our times.They use the power of collective to focus on common goals and the common good. Collaborative and connected, open and distributed, networked communities are committed to causes of common interest by involving various energies: citizens, experts, companies, local and national authorities, researchers…What would be the role of networks in a society in transition and speeding up where traditional organizations seem sometimes unable to face great challenges.

In order to warm up the discussion I would like to share with you some thoughts I´ve already shared with the rest of participants:

In the last decades, Western society has gradually ceased to be understood as part of a territory. He has left it in the background, considered nothing more than a simple scenario. It has mutated the way of living, in its most social, relational, political and economic essence.
The rise of globalization processes, and in general, the growing power of the financial ecosystem over the vital dynamics of the territories, has reduced the capacity of most people to understand themselves as protagonists of a reality that develops around them and beyond its nearest circle.
Networking organizations and new models of production, new approaches to circular, collaborative and civic economy offer a new opportunity for everyone to feel protagonists of the territory.
But really, how we could create a real impact and not just a new market niche without a real connection with local realm?
We need to build trust among the people who live nearby. Can we do it?
One of the simplest and most interesting sentences I heard this year from a public policy officer in Italy is: the best thing any public administration can do today is to promote spaces, situations, and programs in order to get people to meet again.
So when we hear something so clear from the public administration, what can be our proposal, our collaboration and our simplest action for the next three years, as citizens, practitioners, entrepreneurs, researchers or activists?

You can find more info about Ouishare Fest here.

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