Cities Under Pressure: Innovating in Crises

After the start of the war, I had the choice to go abroad, but there was a feeling that I am most needed in Ukraine at this critical moment. The ReStart Ukraine project is led and participated in by my friends and close acquaintances, young professionals who I have already worked with in other projects. The multi-layered approach and the involvement of an interdisciplinary team is a strong feature of the ReStart initiative, which is why getting  involved in this project was both a challenge and an opportunity to put my knowledge and skills to work for my country. 

My experience consists of working on projects of various scales and context: from planning of streets and river embankments to strategies of integrated development of Ukrainian amalgamated territorial hromads (communities); from the project of research and improvement of transport safety near schools to research into local informal architecture of individual houses of the Black Sea coast.

Dr Kate Philip is the Programme Lead on the Presidential Employment Stimulus in South Africa. Against the backdrop of the pandemic and its associated job losses, this stimulus has rolled out mass public employment programmes as well as livelihood and enterprise support measures. Since October last year, over 300,000 young people were placed as school assistants throughout the country, subsistence farmers received production input vouchers, environmental programmes were scaled up and over 30,000 people in the creative sector received support to create new work, amongst other programmes. Dr Philip also played a lead role in the design of South Africa’s Community Work Programme, which employs 240,000 people. Through the ILO, she supported the Government of Greece in the design of an employment programme at the height of the Greek crisis. She is author of ‘Markets on the Margins: Mineworkers, Enterprise Development and Job Creation’ (James Currey, London, 2018).

Brian brings more than 25 years of professional experience in the public and private sectors to the role of Director of the Office of Performance & Innovation, and Director of Strategic Management for the City of Minneapolis. His background includes work in nonprofit management, county government, for-profit business development, policy consultation, fundraising, lobbying and reform efforts in juvenile justice, human services, health, transportation and education.

He also currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Fortis Capital, a non-profit corporation engaged in economic development finance with an emphasis on providing access to debt capital for businesses owned by persons of color and in marginalized communities. Before joining the City, Brian was owner and president of the Institute on Culture and Policy, a policy consulting firm dedicated to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities through systems change and community engagement. While maintaining his leadership role with the Institute on Culture and Policy, Brian also served as the State of Minnesota’s coordinator for the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative for five years.

Kerstin admires people and organisations that are fully committed to making our world a more just, peaceful, and sustainable place. Her strongest passion is building and developing organisations and teams and making them work, surpassed only by her fascination for the magic of human interaction and communication.

She currently leads the BMW Herbert Quandt Foundation’s RISE Cities program. Having worked in various leadership functions across industry, NGOs, the public sector and consulting, Kerstin has sharpened her ability to identify opportunities ‘on the horizon’ and to engage thought leaders or key stakeholders so as to make opportunities real. She strongly believes in the importance of nurturing empathy, creativity, and an ability for self-reflection in oneself and others.

Charles Landry works with cities around the world to help them make the most of their potential and facilitates complex urban change projects. His aim is to connect the triad culture, creativity and city making. He is co-founder of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival.

He has published extensively – most recently The Civic City in a Nomadic World, The Creative Bureaucracy (with Margie Caust), An Advanced Introduction to the Creative City, Psychology & the City (with Chris Murray) and The Digitized City. You can download these books as PDF files via Charles’ website: www.charleslandry.com