Bartosz Bartoszewicz
Gdynia’s Vice-President for Quality of Life. Graduate of political science at the University of Gdansk and MBA studies. In the city he is responsible for education, health and widely understood activities in the area of the smart city. He started to be active in the city space as a very young Gdyniaian, engaging in the activities of non-governmental organizations. Twice elected by the inhabitants as a councillor of the City Council of Gdynia, he also served as the Mayor’s plenipotentiary for non-governmental organizations, he was also the head of the organizational staff of the Red Bull Air Race Gdynia World Championship. Since 2014, he has been responsible for Gdynia’s educational system, among others.
His competences also include supervision and coordination of works implementing solutions in the area of so-called smart cities.
→ TOPIC OF THE SPEECH: Smart Cities and UrbanLab – in the context of considerations, smart is not only technology.
Małgorzata Czaja
Head of an independent paper on the quality of life and integration of the management system of Gdynia City Hall. Initiator of Gdynia Open Data. Graduate of the Maritime University of Gdynia (currently the Maritime University), specialization: Quality Management.
Since birth associated with Gdynia, and since November 2015 with the City Hall of Gdynia, where she has been implementing projects related to the idea of the smart city and improving the quality of life of its residents.
Katarzyna Gruszecka-Spychała
Vice-President of the City of Gdynia for Economic Affairs. Graduate of law at the University of Gdańsk, legal adviser. As Vice Mayor of the City of Gdynia, she is primarily responsible for economic policy. She supervises the departments dealing with economic development and support of entrepreneurs, supervision of municipal property, municipal buildings, tourism, promotion and social communication, as well as municipal units – Spatial Planning Office, District Labour Office, Pomeranian Science and Technology Park, Experiment Science Centre, Municipal Transport Authority and Municipal Buildings and Premises Authority. It coordinates the implementation of the city development strategy. Under the authority of the Mayor of the City, he exercises the owner’s rights and obligations towards companies in which the municipality holds shares. He closely cooperates with the international organization Urban Land Institute, of which he is a member. He also serves as the Mayor of Gdynia’s Plenipotentiary for the Development of Transport Infrastructure.
She is a co-author of the Agreement on Implementation of Integrated Territorial Investments, which provides a basis for financing metropolitan projects from EU funds.
→ SUBJECT OF THE SPEECH: Developing business in cities of the future. Why Gdynia
Michał Guć
Gdynia’s Vice-President for Innovation. Civil engineer, Master of Economics. In the city he is responsible for: raising European funds, cooperation with the non-governmental sector, activation and support of seniors, social assistance, social economy, revitalization programs and community organizations, civic budget, architectural and construction administration, environmental protection, waste management, social innovations.
He presides over the Gdynia Council for Public Benefit Activity, the Gdynia Senior Citizens’ Council and the Citizens’ Budget Council. He is the representative of the President of the City of Gdynia for civic activity. He was the initiator and author of the first in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe comprehensive program of cooperation between local government and non-governmental organizations. For two terms of office he worked in the Council for Public Benefit Activity at the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, currently he is Vice-Chairman of the Social Welfare Council at the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy and Chairman of the team working at the Prime Minister’s Chancellery to reform the rules of public financing of the non-governmental sector.
→ FOUNDATION THEME: Social Innovations in City Policies
Joanna Jaczewska
Sociologist, data analyst, urban planner. For three years she has been working for the Social Innovation Laboratory in Gdynia, where she was involved in conducting social consultations, Civic Budget, evaluation and preparation for implementation of open source software (LimeSurvey, Consul, Decidim). Co-coordinator of the 3rd Civic Panel in Gdansk. Since 2018 researcher and lecturer at the Department of Regional Development of the Institute of Geography, University of Gdansk. Interested in deliberative democracy, e-participation, sustainable development and human-oriented design.
Marek Łucyk
Gdynia’s Vice-President for Development. Political scientist by education, sport manager by choice. Under his wings Gdynia has developed its recreational offer. Undertakings such as the free sports program Gdynia Poruszenie, MTB Gdynia Marathon, or the Grand Prix of Gdynia – the largest cycle of street runs in Poland – gather lovers of physical activity. It carries out tasks based on a broad partnership with non-governmental organizations, sports clubs, schools and district councils.
→ TOPIC OF THE SPEECH: The climatic center of Gdynia. Designing changes to meet the needs of residents and climate change
Wojciech Kłosowski
Local government expert in strategic planning of local and regional development, one of the most experienced Polish specialists in urban regeneration. For over 25 years he has worked as an independent advisor to local authorities. Author and co-author of numerous strategies and plans concerning the development of cities and regions, including economic strategies, revitalization programs, social policies, cultural strategies. He is the author of, among others, the manual “Islands of opportunity. How to build local development strategies”. Privately – grandfather of eight grandchildren, author of the novel, saber and keen participant of LARPs.
→ SUBJECT OF THE SPEECH: A new perspective on the social policy of cities in the area of ageing societies
→ WORKSHOP THEME: Will urban space survive climate change (workshop with strategy game elements)
Martyna Obarska
Culture expert, editor-in-chief of “Magazyn Miasta”. She studies, writes and lectures. She describes initiatives at the junction of architecture, urban planning and social activities. She conducts research workshops and trainings. She lectures at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Warsaw (SWPS University), where she co-created the module of urban studies in the field dedicated to innovation design of the School of Ideas. She co-created the programs “Hear Your City” and podcast “Magazyn Miasta” in TOK fm.
Bartosz Piziak
Graduated from the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management of the Jagiellonian University. He is also a graduate of the Faculty of Management and Marketing at the Institute of Public Affairs of the Jagiellonian University. Currently Assistant Professor at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development, where he coordinates, among others, the project entitled “Urban Lab as a pilot tool to improve the quality of life of city dwellers according to the idea of smart city”.
His research interests focus on the issues of regional development in Central and Eastern European countries, as well as implementation of the smart city concept in Poland. He took part in various research projects. Author or co-author of several scientific articles and books devoted to, among others, the development of tourism in cities, geographical proximity of companies in advanced industry and broadly understood economic development. His passion is traveling, and the best regeneration of the Beskids.
Kacper Pobłocki
Social anthropologist. He works at the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (EUROREG) of the University of Warsaw. He received a PhD degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University in Budapest. He also graduated from University College Utrecht in the Netherlands and was a scholarship holder of Professor David Harvey’s The Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York. His doctoral thesis was entitled “The Center for Place, Culture and Politics. His doctoral thesis was entitled “The Cunning of Class: Urbanization of Inequality in Post-War Poland” was awarded by the Prime Minister in 2011. He has published, among others, in Critique of Anthropology and Polish Sociological Review. He conducted research in Łódź, Poznań, Warsaw, Wrocław, Detroit, Teheran and Tokyo. In 2009-2014 he supported the emergence and development of urban movements in Poland, among others as the substantive coordinator of the first Congress of Urban Movements. Co-author of the book “Anti-spatially-less: the right to the city in action”. (Res Publica Nowa, 2013, Jerzy Regulski Award) and author of the book “Capitalism. A Story of Short Duration”, which was recognized by the Economicus competition chapter as the economic book of the year.
Dr. Mariusz Sokołowicz
Born in Łódź. Academic worker and urban social activist. Professor at the University of Lodz, specializing in the issues of urban economy and territorial marketing. Author and editor of over 80 publications on urban economy. For several years he worked as a manager and advisor on the real estate market. He was a social co-author of the Development Strategy of Piotrkowska Street for the years 2009-2020 and in the years 2009-2013 as a local government official was responsible for its revitalization. He managed several research projects and participated in the implementation of several national and international projects financed by Horizon 2020, National Science Centre, Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, European Social Fund, Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, and Norwegian Financial Mechanism. Urban activist, among others in the Piotrkowska Street Foundation, whose aim is to revitalize the center of Łódź and strengthen its identity. He deepens his knowledge and experience during numerous trips abroad, among others to France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Slovakia. In her free time she reads and writes a lot. His passion is travelling, especially motorcycle travel.
→ TOPIC OF THE SPEECH: Architecture of choice.Nudge units in local governments – is it possible to implement tools of architecture of choice in Polish cities?
The condition of effective implementation of urban policy is acceptance of its assumptions by the inhabitants. In order to persuade the inhabitants to take actions that foster sustainable urban development, the so-called Choice Architecture tools can be used, which have so far been used primarily by the governments of some countries. However, it seems that many of them can be implemented in local governments.
During the session, the concept will be explained, the tools presented and the proposed possibilities of using the selection architecture in Polish local governments.
→ WORKSHOP THEME: Communication and territorial marketing in the process of adaptation to climate change
The aim of the workshop is to work out together the areas in which the concept of the architecture of choice can be used in local governments and to work out possible solutions for establishing local government “nudge units”.
The skills that the trainer wants to pass on are creative thinking about designing new institutional solutions within traditional local government structures and cross-sectoral and transversal thinking.
Filip Springer
Writer and photographer. Author of many reportage cycles and books, among others Miedzianka. History of Disappearance, Bathtub with Colonnade, 13 floors, City Archipelago, Badly Born, Dwunaste: Don’t Think You’ll Escape. Scholarship holder of the National Center of Culture, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Ryszard Kapuściński “Herodot” Foundation and the City of Warsaw. Nominated for the most important literary awards in Poland. His books are translated into Chinese, English, German, Czech, Russian and Hungarian. He cooperates with the Institute of Reportage in Warsaw, co-founder of the MiedziankaFest literary festival.
→ TOPIC OF THE SPEECH: Building the future. Architecture is an art that allows to travel in time. Thanks to its long duration, we can not only move to the past and feel the spatial relationships created for people living in a given place centuries ago, but also set out into the future to see how our buildings and cities will look like in 20, 30 or 70 years. However, each of the stakeholders of the investment process (developer, architect, contractor, user, neighbor) uses a completely different notion of “future”. Where the term expires for the developer (with the expiration of warranty and guarantee agreements), this is where the user’s future really begins. An ecological disaster equals us in this complex relationship to time. Without taking radical and large-scale climate action, the term of validity of the future designed for us by architecture is extremely short.
Dr. Wojciech Szczurek
President of the City of Gdynia. A third-generation Gdyniaian, loves Gdynia. Doctor of law, judge by profession. He started his local government activity preceded by civic activity (he co-founded the Civic Committee) in 1990, when he became a councilor of the City Council of Gdynia. In 1991-1998 he was the Chairman of the City Council of Gdynia, at the same time representing the city in the Local Government Sejm of the Gdańsk Province. He initiated the establishment of the NORDA Metropolitan Forum of Commune Heads, Mayors, Presidents and Starosts in 2011, the aim of which is the cooperation of its local governments for the development of Pomerania. Vice President of the Board of the Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area Association established in 2015. Author of the book “Economic activity of communes in sea ports” (Gdańsk 2002) and many press articles on law and self-government; co-author of the book Law in sea ports (Warsaw 1998).
Aleksandra Zemke
Graduate of Conflict Resolution at the University of Amsterdam and the Institute of Applied Social Sciences at Warsaw University. In 2011 she founded the non-governmental organization Smilemundo in Spain, creating innovative educational tools to support sustainable development. For years she has been cooperating with institutions operating in the field of local politics: United Cities and Local Governments, UNDP, UN – Habitat, Eduacting Cities or the Province of Barcelona. He creates for them educational programs related mainly to Agenda 2030 and innovations in the field of Social and Reliable Economy. The tools she creates have received numerous awards, including the prestigious Word Summit Youth Award, granted by the United Nations in Brazil for the best projects using new technologies to promote sustainable development.
→ TOPIC OF THE SPEECH: The city is a continuous dialogue. The development of a city requires a mature dialogue between all its users, each of us is part of the process of city development and planning (even if we do not consciously participate in it). Local government is only one of the actors in search of answers to the biggest challenges, without grassroots initiatives it is difficult to make bold decisions – the need for education, planning and decision making based on available knowledge.
The presentation is based on the examples from Barcelona and the results of the simulation game, which show when participation can be successful, inspire and stimulate reflection on how to get involved in creating the cities of the future.
→ WORKSHOP THEME: SmileUrbo activating game. Participation in the proposed game will show you how to navigate the issues of local democracy, multidimensionality of decisions, sustainable development, mechanisms of building understanding.
It will inspire innovative and adapted to different situations ways to solve conflicts, participate in public debate, use participatory tools.
