Nobel Week Dialogue

The City of the Future

9 December 2021
Svenska Mässan, Gothenburg and online

The 2021 Nobel Week Dialogue was a hybrid event with a global digital audience online, as well as a limited audience present in Gothenburg.

A mix of speakers participated digitally and physically on stage including the following Nobel Prize laureates: Frances Arnold, chemistry 2018; Serge Haroche, physics 2012; Paul Romer, economic sciences 2018 and Brian Schmidt, physics 2011.

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Take a second to picture your future home: what do you want it to be like? For well over half of humanity, that home will be part of a city. Despite all the pressures of urban life and the new and unprecedented challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, the global trend towards urbanisation looks certain to continue, with the UN predicting that two thirds of us will be city-dwellers by 2050. If we fail to make the most of our metropolitan environments, the majority of humanity will suffer.   

So how do we make cities better? From gleaming towers to sprawling slums, from excessive wealth to unimaginable poverty, from green oases to lawless danger zones, cities bring together multiple, interconnected challenges. Mobility, health, water, energy, housing, employment, food, recreation, culture, democracy, climate: everything is interdependent. None of these things can be individually perfected within the complex urban environment, but all can be improved. The 2021 Nobel Week Dialogue will explore the nature of the city, and possible visions of a hoped-for future.

Digital participants at the Nobel Week Dialogue were offered an exclusive treat on the event platform: A special screening of the internationally praised VR-experience Container, in which award-winning directors Meghna Singh and Simon Wood explores the darker sides of cities and human infrastructure today and historically.

Event insights

Nobel Week Dialogue 2021

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