We are excited to be part of the CityLink Festival in Copenhagen, September 21 to 24, 2017.

Our session will be:

POCACITO Leveraging the diversity and dynamism of cities to discover urban solutions for the sustainability revolution

Saturday, September 23, 4 to 6pm at Aalborg University

Over two years the POCACITO crew traveled across Europe and the US, meeting with diverse communities to develop innovative approaches to the sustainability issues faced by the world’s cities. From Las Vegas to Milan, Lisbon to Memphis, Detroit to Copenhagen, we found some inspiring ideas and revealing stories to share.

Our speakers are:

Anne Jensen, Aarhus University (part of POCACITO.eu)

Johanna Ekne, City of Malmö (part of POCACITO in the US) and

Øystein Leonardsen, City of Copenhagen (also part of POCACITO in the US).

And with Brendan O’Donnell and Max Gruenig from Ecologic Institute.

About the City Link Festival:
City Link Festival invites you to Copenhagen from 21st-24th September, for a festival celebrating cities and their people through urban and cultural experiments. This year’s theme will explore how we can build bridges in our cities physically, socially, locally, internationally, culturally and professionally. The festival is our biggest yet with over 50 events across 4 days around Sydhavnen – Copenhagen’s South Harbour area. City Link’s community is a mix of artists, citizens, architects, sociologists, musicians, writers, urban planners, young, old, all with an interest in their city are welcome!

City Link is initiated by GivRum – a non profit organization working with sustainable city development through community building, innovative partnerships and the revitalization of urban space.

Visit www.city-link.org for more information.

Please tell everybody and come and join us for the session.

About our speakers:

Johanna Ekne has worked with sustainable city development in different roles for about 20 years. She started working as a environmental coordinator and information officer for the County council of Skane, then moved on to working as a project manager at the Environmental department at the City of Malmö, working with cities and organizations in for instance Namibia, Turkey and Russia. The projects covered different views of sustainability such as energy, mobility management, environmental education and circular economy. Johanna has also worked for a regional NGO and with her own private consultancy, mostly with environmental education and communication. Her special interest is how to communicate sustainability and engage local communities.

Johanna Ekne

Øystein Leonardsen is Business District Manager of South Harbour at Integrated Urban Renewal South Harbour. He is also an external lecturer at Roskilde University, with 28 years’ experience in urban and traffic planning, business development and user engagement. Since 2008, he has been involved in three integrated urban renewal projects around Copenhagen, and has also conducted a sustainable business potential analyses of South Harbour, launched an ambitious strategy to promote urban life and low carbon and circular commerce locally. He is managing the development of a string of local business improvements networks in South Harbour, and is founding member of Energy Forum South Harbour – a collaboration between Aalborg University Copenhagen, The Technical and Environmental Administration, The Local Council and The Integrated Urban Renewal South Harbour. In September 2016 he participated in POCACITO in the US as member of an European expert group. He holds a MSc. in Environmental and Socio-Technological Planning and a Diploma in Leadership.

Recent publications:

Sustainable Business and Urban Life in South Harbour – Strategy (in Danish): http://kk.sites.itera.dk/apps/kk_pub2/pdf/1613_SZLBhASNor.pdf

Sustainable Business and Urban Life in South Harbour – Potentials (in Danish): http://kk.sites.itera.dk/apps/kk_pub2/pdf/1557_eB2z7X81GJ.pdf

Sustaining area-based initiatives by developing appropriate “anchors”: the role of social capital: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/j8Es2f72vqwra46G8tEh/full

Øystein Leonardsen