General Assembly 2018

The City of Knowledge invites members to the seventh ordinary general assembly on April 11, 2018. Please note that the assembly is held in Danish – and keynote presentation in English.

The first part of the program consists of the formal general assembly with an agenda in accordance to the City of Knowledge articles. The first part is followed by an exciting presentation by international keynote speaker Julie K. Wagner as well as a debate on Innovation Districts. After the keynote presentation, there will be a reception with opportunities for networking.

Preliminary programme

  • 16.45-17.00     Arrival with light refreshments
  • 17:00-18:00     General Assembly
  • 18:00-18:10     Break
  • 18:10-19:00     Keynote: ’Innovation Districts’ by Julie K. Wagner
  • 19:00-19:30     Reception

Innovation districts are geographic areas where leading-edge institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators. These areas are usually physically compact, transit-accessible, and technically-wired. They also offer mixed-use housing, office, and retail space. Innovation districts create an atmosphere for job growth and help people connect across various sectors, generate new ideas, and accelerate commercialization.

As one of the leading experts regarding Innovation Districts, Julie Wagner will reflect on the urban development and economic potentials of the City of Knowledge Triple-Helix model.

Keynote speaker Julie K. Wagner
Julie Wagner is a researcher and co-author of the paper “The Rise of Innovation Districts: A New Geography of Innovation in America,” which observes that new geographies of innovation are emerging in response to broad economic and demographic forces that value specific place-based attributes and amenities. For over 12 years she was a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent think tank based in Washington DC, where she designed and led numerous global research initiatives. She is currently a visiting scholar with the Esade Business School’s Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics. Wagner has written articles on the new geography of innovation for the Harvard Business Review, Fortune Magazine, Quartz, and The Guardian.

Living in Europe, Wagner provides strategic guidance to advance the competitiveness of cities globally, including Amsterdam, Melbourne, Milan, Sheffield, Sydney, and Torino. She has trained numerous European cities on how to design public involvement strategies for large-scale urban projects. She is the author of a European Commission handbook on the topic, which was subsequently translated into six languages.

A trained city planner, Wagner served as a deputy planning director for the District of Columbia where she developed the city’s long-range plan, orchestrated the development of plans for more than one hundred neighborhoods, and managed all controversial land use disputes regarding projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She also designed a library revitalization strategy with the District of Columbia Library Board of Trustees.

Wagner earned a Masters in City Planning from MIT and holds a Bachelors in Organizational Communication from Northeastern University. Wagner has received several planning awards from MIT and the American Planning Association for her work.

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