Winners Announced for the The Post-COVID-19 CITY Challenge

Three most promising solutions selected by expert judges on MIT Pandemic Response CoLab

In January 2021, the Belmont Forum funded international research–innovation consortium, IFWEN, launched The Post COVID-19 City Challenge in collaboration with Bob Hendrikx and MIT’s Pandemic Response Colab team for a 3-month period to drive multidisciplinary thinking and collaboration around urban design for the post-COVID-19 city.

The Post-COVID-19 City Challenge on the Pandemic Response Colab has ended! Thank you everyone for joining us on this journey and contributing a submission to the colab. Check out the winning teams HERE The Post-COVID-19 City challenge was a multidisciplinary call to action that challenged urbanists, innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, researchers, scientists, and various other types of urban practitioners and planners from around the world to reset our thinking on how sustainable, resilient, liveable and just cities can be built for urban futures that nurture human-nature relationships. We received 25 excellent submissions from around the world that contributed ideas and innovation pitches from diverse disciplines including natural sciences, technology and engineering, social sciences, communications and media, fine arts, and, urban planning and design.

“It was inspiring to see so much diversity in the responses we received. From around the world, people were really concerned with almost every aspect of the modern city – whether it be re-designing an urban block or re-thinking how better to connect as citizens in society in terms of crisis in a city, it was inspiring to see how nature became a central part to each of these diverse solutions.” – M’Lisa Colbert, Co-Director, The Nature of Cities

‘While we live in a world in which a dead tree has more value than a living tree. This challenge brought light into the darkness. With many applications from various cultural backgrounds it shows there is optimism for a better balance between humanity and its environment. This makes me hopeful.’ – Bob Hendrikx, Founder Loop Biotech

We would like to thank everyone who joined us on this journey and contributed a submission to the Post-COVID-19 City Challenge. It is our great pleasure to announce the winning teams below:

For more information about the POST-COVID-19 City Colab please reach out to mlisa.colbert@thenatureofcities.com

Post-COVID-19 City Challenges Review Committee

Thank you to our challenge designers and esteemed judges for supporting the challenge’s review process:

M’Lisa Colbert

Andy Van Den Dobbelsteen

Thomas Elmqvist

Bob Hendrikx

Patrick Lydon

David Maddox

Pourya Salehi

Karen Seto

Visit the Pandemic CoLab to learn more about these solutions and to participate in other challenges.