Megatrends such as climate change, resource scarcity, demographic change and rising affluence are changing our cities. This presents great challenges that will have to be faced, not only by the cities themselves, but also by companies, policy-makers and research institutions.
Launched by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in 2012, the Morgenstadt: City Insights innovation network is addressing these challenges, collaborating with its industry partners and city representatives to develop promising technologies and concepts for the city of tomorrow. Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, has now become the first South American city to join the network.
Climate protection and sustainable mobility for Buenos Aires
Collaboration between the innovation network and the city of Buenos Aires will begin in earnest in March 2016. At a meeting led by Fraunhofer IAO, the partners will define the first innovation projects. With more than 17 million people living in and around Buenos Aires, there is high demand in this megacity for resource and energy efficiency, climate protection and sustainable mobility.
“Our plan is to develop and launch innovation projects that deal with mobility, energy, water, resource consumption and safety,” says Alanus von Radecki, Fraunhofer IAO researcher and director of Morgenstadt: City Insights.
One idea is to transform the heavily contaminated Matanza River into a source of clean water and livable urban ecosystems. To do this, there are plans to set up a German-Argentinian support program for Buenos Aires that will fund applied research in these areas.
“It is the stated aim of the Morgenstadt: City Insights innovation network to become the world’s leading network for sustainable urban solutions. Gaining Buenos Aires as a member in the network is a crucial step in this internationalization strategy and we greatly look forward to our collaboration,” Radecki concludes.
The city’s membership in the innovation network will be for an initial period of two years. The goal, however, is to establish a long-term collaboration between the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the city of Buenos Aires to support innovation-based and sustainable urban development. The network partners will also strive to work closely together with the Buenos Aires province as a whole.
The initiative is being supported and funded by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
