Invited Talks

Talk Title

Talk Summary

The Intelligence of Place: Designing Supercities for Human-Centered Futures

In an increasingly interconnected and urbanized world, cities are the engines of economic growth, social transformation, and environmental action. Alfonso Vegara introduces the concept of Supercities—urban regions that harness the “Intelligence of Place” to align spatial design, data-driven innovation, and human behavior. Drawing on 25 years of experience developing strategic urban projects worldwide, he will outline how collaborative ecosystems between public and private sectors, digital technologies, and citizen engagement can shape resilient, inclusive, and sustainable cities. 

Quantum Cities™: Data-centric approaches for resilient, sustainable cities

The world's inexorable urbanisation presents great opportunities for urban development to contribute to building sustainable, resilient economies and societies. But fast-growing cities also face growing risks as they struggle to sustainably house, power, feed, and provide services for a rapidly shifting and increasingly digital population. Cities are at the frontline of extreme weather events, network cyber risks, collapsing health systems, pandemics, and overwhelmed public services, and interdependent supply chain risks. These complex, interconnected risks are accumulating and propagating. New data-driven approaches and tools, and machine intelligence-enhanced solutions, help us predict and prevent risks and deliver resilience-as-a-service solutions.  

Decentralization and Heterogeneity in Complex Social Systems

The extensive work by Dr. Alfredo Morales had a consistent theme on decentralization and heterogeneity in complex social systems. This theme covers various relevant research topics from political polarization and segregation to geographical distribution and decentralized governance. I believe this theme was part of the reason for his enthusiasm in creating and running the US Northeast regional chapter of the Complex Systems Society, for which I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with him closely and develop shared views of how social systems should be studied, organized and managed. In this short talk, I plan to highlight some of Dr. Morales's representative research accomplishments and community development activities (together with some of my own) from the lens of "decentralization and heterogeneity" as the core underlying philosophy.