The President of the UNGO “Taxpayers Association of Ukraine” Grigol Katamadze held a meeting of the mayors and representatives of the city councils of Bucha, Irpen, Fastov and Kharkiv with the famous architect, entrepreneur and scientist from MIT Professor Kent Larson

On September 20 of this year, the second meeting of the planned cycle with scientists from MIT took place. This time, professor Kent Larson, an architect, entrepreneur and scientist, currently director of the City Science research group at the MIT Media Lab, shared his professional knowledge on the issue of developing the process of creating post-war cities in Ukraine.

The discussion was attended by Grigol Katamadze, the President of the Taxpayers Association of Ukraine, the General Director of UNGO TAU, Lyudmila Gerasymenko, representatives of territorial branches of  UNGO TAU, business and city councils representatives, namely the Mayor of the city of Fastiv Mykhailo Netyazhuk, the first deputy mayor of Kharkiv Oleksandr Novak, the deputy director of the Department for International Cooperation agencies and financial institutions of the Kharkiv City Council Kostyantyn Demenkov, Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture of the Executive Committee of the Irpin City Council Mykhailo Sapon, Head of the Department of Economics and Investments of the Bucha Council Tetyana Lipinska, Head of the Territorial Branch of the UNGO TAU Volodymyr Shvadchenko, Chairman of the Council of the Territorial Branch of UNGO TAU in the Volyn Region Vasyl Dutko, and others.

The following format of events, initiated by the President of the UNGO TAU, aims to cover issues of public administration, implementation of modern technologies, economic security and financial stability, local self-government and foreign policy, the post-war security system, the future of the European Union and many other issues.

Kent Larson talked about his collaboration with Lord Norman Foster, the UN Patron for Cities, in developing the process of creating post-war cities in Ukraine. Professor Larson’s vision is to use the latest technologies developed by MIT to rebuild the affected cities. According to Larson, in the future we can expect the latest technologically developed alternatives on the sites of destroyed buildings and infrastructure objects, and in addition to them, completely new architectural creations that will function to create a more comfortable atmosphere for the activities of enterprises in cities. In addition, Professor Larson emphasized that the rebuilt cities will have a high level of environmental friendliness due to planning based on the minimization of carbon dioxide emissions into the environment.

After a dialogue with the members of the conference, Professor Larson promised to speed up the pace of reconstruction work, because he sees that today our people need to return to their native homes as soon as possible and to the peaceful and calm life that they were forcibly deprived of by the aggressor country. Summarizing the results of the meeting, Professor Larson invited the conference members to continue the discussion of cooperation at the next event on October 27 at the City Science Summit in the Media Lab, which will also be held online.

The discussion took place constructively, in the format of a dialogue. All participants of the event were able to express their opinion on the theme of the event and identify promising issues for discussion.