There is a need for a continuous conversation about the best way to shape the future of Indian cities. This conversation will take place across multiple cities, with learnings from each other.
Therefore, it is proposed to hold an ‘Imagining Indian Cities’ Workshop annually in different Indian places. The first of those took place in Bangalore from 10 to 15 March 2025, with the next two planned for Chennai and Pune.
These Workshops will gather academics, practitioners and urban innovators in multi-day get-together. Half of each conference will focus on the host city, and the other half will be for learnings from elsewhere.
This ‘Creative Bangalore’ Workshop was organised by the Indian think tank iSPIRT Foundation and supported by IISc/IUDX, IIHS and Dassault Systèmes, for bringing together various participants, chosen to form a sustainable collective capable of shedding light on a certain number of key questions and moving towards increasingly measurable contributions.
Initial key questions were:
- Genericity and reproducibility of the Creative Cities model developed by Patrick Cohendet
- Digital Urban Data, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and territorial intelligence
- Placement of (Digital) Commons
- Digital representations of culture
- Digital representations of Wicked Problems
Results:
- 5 full days, hosted by Bangalore International Centre (D1), IISc/India Urban Data Exchange (D2), Sabha (D3), Indian Institute of Human Settlement (D4) and Dassault Systèmes (D5);
- More than 50 speakers, in person or online;
- A rich repository of content, including speaker presentations, slides and Photos https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lxnbuhna3Hz_t49BOGvZG15_0dByi9Ki
