All Things Urban

Urban Festival 2020: Empowering the Civic In this complex and changing world, how do we really empower and activate people to consciously participate in the transformation of South Africa’s cities and towns? What are the big opportunities if people and places are empowered by technology to achieve our objective of inclusive, resilient, safer and liveable cities and towns? And how can an all-of-society approach to activating citizens be ensured if tech remains inaccessible to many South Africans? Introducing this year’s Urban Festival theme: Empowering the Civic - an exploration into how the physical and virtual world can be harnessed to engage people in reimagining and shaping their own cities, both in these strange and uncertain COVID-19 pandemic times, and into the future. Events include workshops, lectures, discussion groups, film screenings, Instagram takeovers, podcasts and virtual exhibitions. Urban Festival is hosted by South African Cities Network (SACN), Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN), The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Open Cities Lab (OCL), Journalism and Media Lab (JAMLAB), Our Future Cities (OFC), ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and others.

The South African Cities Network assists and guides cities to become effective drivers of local and national development. It also encourages cities to manage the ever-increasing population growth and expansion of services it has to provide.