Eureka Meets the Atlantic at MIT to discuss the sustainable development of cities

The 4th Eureka Meets the Atlantic, organized by the Portuguese Chairmanship of the Eureka, and supported by the MIT Portugal Program, took place on 21st of April at MIT, Boston. This event focused on the topic of local to global innovation for the sustainable development of cities. From Portugal MPP was represented by the National Director, Pedro Arezes.

The event started with the welcome remarks from Ana Neves, Portuguese Deputy Chairwoman of Eureka Network, John Hansman, Co-Director of MPP at MIT, and Francisco Almeida, from the Portuguese Embassy of EUA.

During the day it was possible to discuss several topics: how cutting -edge research is contributing to sustainable and resilient coastal cities solutions; the public policy challenges for sustainable cities and entrepreneurship for sustainable cities.

We also had the opportunity to listen Christoph Reinhart, MPP Lead Faculty in sustainable cities; Head of Sustainable Design Lab at MIT, and Paulo Ferrão, MPP PGC member, sharing their collaborative work under the MIT Portugal Program Flagship project C-Tech > Climate-Driven Technologies for Low Carbon Cities.

For the closing session, Manuel Heitor, from IST/IN+ and Former Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education in Portugal, Joana Mendonça, President of the Portuguese National Innovation Agency, and Christoph Reinhart, discussed the next steps to create a network of smart sustainable coastal cities.