Urban Future 2024

Every year, city changers gather in various cities worldwide to exchange insights on driving transformation and discussing successes and challenges. This collaborative effort fuels the future of urban cities. This summer all eyes will be on Rotterdam as the host city for Urban Future 2024 showcasing and inspiring with all kinds of Rotterdam-based sustainable, innovative and urban practices that help shape a more green and resilient future for all. 

Urban Future will focus on 5 tracks during the conference: 

• Climate adaptation 
• Building sustainable cities 
• Social aspects of transformation 
• Personal growth & leadership 
• Citychanger skills 

Find out more information about the program here. 

Rotterdam’s sustainability track record

In addition to the insightful main program, plenty of field trips, side events, networking receptions and other activities will be happening throughout vibrant Rotterdam.  

Gerald Babel-Sutter, CEO of Urban Future, shares that a few key factors played a role in picking Rotterdam a host city: “When choosing Rotterdam, a couple of things fell into place that was a really good match for us. Urban Future is the key event for Sustainable Cities, so obviously the city’s own track record in sustainability was one of the key reasons why we were selected to come to Rotterdam in the first place. But also we look at sustainability in the big picture of the event, so it was really cool to see that Rotterdam is very centrally located in Europe with one of the biggest markets where people can travel by train to the conference”. 

Impact

Creating a lasting positive impact for the host city is also a big element for Urban Future. This aligns perfectly with the recently launched “Collaboration for Change” framework from Rotterdam Partners, focusing on bringing people together to work on common goals with future in mind.  

“We’re super proud to be working with Rotterdam Partner on a very specific project with social entrepreneurs where we actually take the knowledge and the know-how and the experience from all the attendees from around the world to support three social businesses here in Rotterdam” shares Gerald Babel-Sutter.