Pub Quiz: Which city hosted the first World Fair?
The answer, I’m proud to say, is my hometown London, which in 1851 hosted the Great Exhibition, one of the first global events in a modern sense.
Since then, one key design challenge for any city hosting a global event (Olympics, World Cup, Expo…) remains simply: What do we do with the site and structures once the circus leaves town?
In the case of London’s Great Exhibition, the magnificent purpose-built structure designed by Charles Paxton-dubbed The Crystal Palace due to its innovative plate glass construction-was conceived as a single-use monument. Over the decades, the site returned to urban parkland while Paxton’s masterpiece was relocated and repurposed, becoming something of a pig’s ear in the process. Indeed, up until it was destroyed by fire, The Crystal Palace hosted everything from lavish banquets for visiting dignitaries, to dog shows for, well, dogs.
Quite a climb-down from its original largesse.
Not so for Expo 2020 Dubai, which opened last month after an understandable delay. At C2 Montréal, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tala al Ansari, Director of Expo2020’s Innovation Ecosystem, and one of the architects of District 2020.
District 2020’s vision is to permanently transform the Expo site and structures into a human-centric smart city that attracts innovators from all over the world, and rather than waiting for the last visitor to leave, District 2020 already has its master plan in place.
Tala leads the development and execution of District 2020’s ecosystem strategy, which supports the curation of its innovation-driven community. That involves engaging and building partnerships with a diverse set of stakeholders across government, academia, accelerators, incubators, and service providers.
Sustainability is at the top of District 2020’s agenda, where it belongs: It is designed to repurpose 80% of Expos structures, many of which are LEED Platinum rated. But to stay true to the ethos of a human-centric smart city, Tala-a proponent of design thinking-urged her leadership and her team to consider the human element too:
“We’re building a technologically smart city, but what will make it sustainable is for it to be human-centric as well…we’re not just looking at sustainability when it comes to buildings and infrastructure. We’re looking at it for our community. How are we going to promote a lifestyle of wellness and work/life balance and continue to take this forward?”
The other priority is attracting start-ups and the dynamic energy they bring. District 2020 has integrated a global entrepreneur program that encourages start-ups to scale their businesses through the ecosystem’s physical and digital infrastructure.
Tala spoke about embracing the ‘Quadruple Helix Innovation System’[1], a development model that recognises four major actors in an innovation system: science, policy, industry, and society. Unlike in Silicon Valley-where, arguably, only two of these are readily found-District 2020 ensures greater social, political, and academic involvement in innovation processes.
“While we are inspired by global ecosystems like Silicon Valley and the amazing talent they attract, we are also very conscious that every country has strengths that we want to build on. When we’re curating this innovation ecosystem, we are building on two of Dubai’s strengths: logistics and smart cities. We want to continue to attract talent and innovate in those spaces, but like any innovation community, we need to attract entrepreneurs, accelerators, incubators and academic institutes.. still a lot of challenges to getting government, industry, academia and citizens to work together.”
To design this innovation ecosystem, Tala has engaged entrepreneurs, corporate partners, research institutes, incubators, and government stakeholders to integrate their needs. Her ambition is to continue to host these kinds of co-creation workshops because the community’s needs will always be evolving. This idea is very much at the core of design thinking: ask what your stakeholders need, rather than assume you know.
What does success look like for Tala and her team?
“Our values,” she explains, “are sustainability, diversity and collaboration.” Success means demonstrating the power of environmental and lifestyle sustainability within built urban space, attracting a diverse community of global talent, and closing the collaborative gap among government, academia, industry, and society.
District 2020 envisions a smart city built on the pillars of sustainability, human-centricity, and entrepreneurship. It’s a blueprint for all cities.
[1] Florian Shutz, Marie Lena Heidingsfelder, Marina Schraudner, Co-shaping the Future in Quadruple Helix Innovation Systems: Uncovering Public Preferences toward Participatory Research and Innovation, She ji, The Journal of Design, Economics and Innovation, Volume 5, Issue 2, Summer 2019, pp 128–46
