Urban Summit Brussels 2025, scheduled for 12–14 June at Brussels Expo, brings together over 200 speakers across five stages. This year's keynote lineup features a diverse mix of urban planners, climate scientists, digital transformation leaders, and policymakers from Europe and beyond. The summit's theme, 'Resilient Cities for a Changing World,' is reflected in each keynote address. Below, we introduce the confirmed keynote speakers and preview their sessions. For a full overview of the summit, see The Complete Guide to Urban Summit Brussels.
Dr. Maya Singh – Chief Urbanist, World Bank
Dr. Maya Singh, the World Bank's Chief Urbanist since 2022, will deliver the opening keynote on 12 June at 9:00 AM in the Auditorium. Her address, 'Financing the Green Transition in Secondary Cities,' draws on her work in 15 countries, including a €340 million urban resilience program in Bangladesh. Singh holds a PhD in Urban Economics from the London School of Economics and previously served as Director of Urban Development at the Asian Development Bank.
Key points from her session:
- Scaling green bonds for municipal projects – she cites the €1.2 billion green bond issued by the City of Paris in 2023.
- Integrating nature-based solutions into existing infrastructure, such as the sponge city initiative in Copenhagen.
- Public-private partnership models that reduce risk for investors, with examples from Kigali and Medellín.
Singh's keynote will be followed by a panel discussion with mayors from Ghent, Lyon, and Bologna. For a recap of her talk, see Opening Keynote Recap.
Prof. Jean-Claude Van den Berg – Climate Adaptation Lead, European Environment Agency
Prof. Van den Berg, who leads climate adaptation research at the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen, will speak on 13 June at 11:30 AM in Hall 2. His session, 'Adapting European Cities to 2°C Warming: A Roadmap,' presents the EEA's latest report, which analyses 42 European cities. The report estimates that by 2050, heat-related mortality in European cities could increase by 50% without adaptation measures.
Van den Berg's talk will cover:
- Urban heat island mitigation strategies, including cool roofs and green corridors, with cost-benefit data from Stuttgart and Vienna.
- Flood resilience infrastructure, such as the Room for the River programme in the Netherlands, which reduced flood risk by 30% at a cost of €2.3 billion.
- Policy recommendations for the EU's upcoming Urban Adaptation Framework, due in 2026.
- Real-time traffic optimisation using reinforcement learning, as tested in Helsinki, where average commute times dropped by 12 minutes.
- Integration of electric scooter and bike-sharing data with public transport schedules, a system now live in Lisbon and Bordeaux.
- Privacy-preserving data aggregation techniques that comply with GDPR, developed in partnership with the University of Leuven.
- Cost-benefit analysis of urban farming: a typical green roof in Nairobi costs €8,000 to install but yields €1,200 annually in vegetables, with a payback period of 7 years.
- Community engagement models that employ local youth, with a pilot in Kibera slum creating 45 jobs.
- Policy recommendations for municipalities to subsidise green roofs, similar to Toronto's Eco-Roof Incentive Program, which offers CAD 100 per square metre.
- How digital twins helped Stockholm reduce energy consumption in public buildings by 15% in 2024, saving €12 million annually.
- Collaboration with KTH Royal Institute of Technology to develop predictive models for air quality, achieving 90% accuracy for PM2.5 levels.
- Plans to expand the twin to include social data, such as population density and access to services, to inform equitable urban planning.
- Design principles for 15-minute cities, as implemented in Shanghai's 15-Minute Community Life Circle programme, which covers 90% of the city.
- Impact of green space on mental health: a study in Shenzhen found that access to parks within 500 metres reduces depression risk by 12%.
- Policy tools such as health impact assessments (HIAs), now mandatory for all new urban projects in Beijing since 2023.
- The pedestrianisation of the city centre, already 40% car-free since 2022, with a target of 60% by 2027.
- Expansion of the low-emission zone (LEZ) to cover the entire Brussels-Capital Region by 2030, reducing NOx emissions by an estimated 30%.
- Partnerships with local universities to monitor air quality using citizen sensors, with 500 devices deployed across the city.
- The Complete Guide to Urban Summit Brussels
- Opening Keynote Recap
- Top 10 Sessions to Attend
- Networking Tips
- Interview with the Mayor of Brussels
He will also announce a new €50 million Horizon Europe call for research on urban climate adaptation. This session is one of the Top 10 Sessions to Attend at the summit.
Maria González – CEO, Smart City Solutions Inc.
Maria González, CEO of Smart City Solutions Inc. (SCS), a Barcelona-based company with €180 million annual revenue, will keynote on 14 June at 10:00 AM in Hall 1. Her talk, 'AI-Driven Urban Mobility: From Pilot to Scale,' focuses on SCS's deployment of AI traffic management in 30 cities worldwide. González, an MIT-trained engineer, previously led Barcelona's smart city initiative, which reduced traffic congestion by 22% between 2018 and 2023.
Highlights of her presentation:
González will also demo SCS's new platform, 'CityBrain 2.0,' which costs €250,000 per year for a city of 500,000 residents. After her talk, she will join a fireside chat with Brussels Mobility Minister Elke Van den Brandt.
Dr. Amara Okafor – Founder, Green Roof Africa
Dr. Amara Okafor, founder and executive director of Green Roof Africa, a Nairobi-based NGO, will speak on 13 June at 2:30 PM in Hall 3. Her keynote, 'Urban Agriculture as a Climate Solution,' showcases her organisation's work installing rooftop gardens on 120 buildings in Nairobi, Lagos, and Accra. Each 100 m² green roof sequesters approximately 2.5 tonnes of CO₂ per year and reduces indoor temperatures by 3–5°C.
Okafor, who holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Cape Town, will present:
Her session will end with a call for European cities to fund similar projects in the Global South through climate finance mechanisms. For networking opportunities with speakers like Okafor, see Networking Tips.
Henrik Larsson – Chief Innovation Officer, Stockholm City Council
Henrik Larsson, Chief Innovation Officer for Stockholm City Council, will keynote on 14 June at 1:00 PM in Hall 2. His talk, 'The Stockholm Model: Digital Twins for Urban Planning,' details the city's open-source digital twin platform, which has been used since 2021. The platform integrates data from 50,000 IoT sensors, traffic cameras, and building permits to simulate scenarios such as new housing developments, flood events, and energy demand.
Larsson will discuss:
He will also announce that Stockholm is open-sourcing the platform's code on GitHub, expecting adoption by at least 10 other European cities within a year. This session complements the Interview with the Mayor of Brussels, which discusses digital governance.
Dr. Li Wei – Director, Urban Health Lab, Tsinghua University
Dr. Li Wei, Director of the Urban Health Lab at Tsinghua University in Beijing, will present on 13 June at 4:00 PM in the Auditorium. Her keynote, 'Healthy Cities: Lessons from East Asia,' synthesises research from 15 Chinese cities on the links between urban design and public health. She will present data showing that residents in neighbourhoods with high walkability (Walk Score > 70) have 25% lower rates of obesity and 18% lower incidence of hypertension.
Key takeaways:
Dr. Li will also launch a new collaboration between Tsinghua and the European Healthy Cities Network, funded by a €2 million grant from the EU-China Urbanisation Partnership.
Closing Keynote: Mayor Philippe Close of Brussels
Mayor Philippe Close will deliver the closing keynote on 14 June at 5:00 PM in the Auditorium. His address, 'Brussels 2035: A Vision for an Inclusive, Green Capital,' will outline the city's updated master plan, which includes a €1.5 billion investment in public transport, 500 hectares of new parks, and 10,000 affordable housing units by 2035. The plan was developed through a participatory process involving 12,000 residents in 2024.
Mayor Close will highlight:
His speech will be followed by a networking reception in the Expo Hall. For more on the mayor's vision, read our Interview with the Mayor of Brussels.