Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute Announce New Speakers and Programming for Bloomberg CityLab 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico

The eleventh CityLab October 14 – 16 will convene over 500 mayors, policymakers, innovators, and creatives to surface and share scalable urban solutions

New featured speakers include Mexico Secretary Román Meyer Falcón, Astronaut Katya Echazarreta, Mexico Senator Ana Lilia Rivera, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, Helsinki Mayor Juhana Vartiainen, Las Condes Mayor Daniela Peñaloza, Las Cruces Mayor Eric Enriquez, National Geographic Explorer Albert Lin, youth climate leaders, and more

Full agenda available here

New York, NY & Washington, D.C. – Today, Bloomberg CityLab, the preeminent global cities summit organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Aspen Institute, announced new speakers, programming, and participants for its eleventh event in Mexico City, Mexico October 14 to October 16, 2024.

In 2024, half the world’s population will be living in places holding national, legislative, and local elections. Most of those people live in cities—where the consequences of these elections will play out. As they do, mayors across the globe are drawing inspiration from the urban policies that catapulted former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum to the presidency. Against this backdrop, Bloomberg CityLab 2024 will convene more than 500 mayors and leading policymakers, innovators, and creatives in Mexico City in October. Together they will explore the urban advancements CDMX and other municipalities throughout Mexico and Latin America have made for their residents – from cutting-edge digitization to the reimagination of transportation, public spaces, economic development, climate mitigation, and youth engagement. Through panel discussions, one-on-one interviews, interactive breakout sessions, artistic performances, and excursions across Mexico City, the summit will delve into the solutions shaped by city halls around the world that are poised to reshape nations.

Newly announced speakers include:

• Katya Echazarreta, astronaut and electrical engineer of NASA and Founder of Fundación Espacial Katya Echazarreta
• Román Meyer Falcón, Mexico’s Secretary of Agrarian, Land, and Urban Development
• Senator Ana Lilia Rivera of the State of Tlaxcala, Mexico
• Mayor Lauren McLean of Boise, Idaho; Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio, Texas; Mayor Eric Enriquez of Las Cruces, New Mexico; Mayor Kim Norton of Rochester, Minnesota; Mayor Brett P. Smiley of Providence, Rhode Island; Mayor Daniela Peñaloza of Las Condes, Chile; Mayor Rossana Chahla of San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina; Mayor Víctor Julián Sánchez Acosta of Soacha, Colombia; Mayor Erion Veliaj of Tirana, Albania; Mayor Juhana Vartiainen of Helsinki, Finland; Mayor Matúš Vallo of Bratislava, Slovakia; Councillor Susan Aiken of Glasgow, UK; Mayor Samuel Pyne of Kamas, Ghana; Mayor Queen Omagano Kamati of Windhoek, Namibia; and Mayor Ronnie Lagnada of Butuan, Philippines
• Albert Lin, National Geographic Explorer and Host of “Lost Cities Revealed”
• Michael Koh, Executive Fellow of Singapore’s Centre for Liveable Cities of the Ministry for National Development
• Daniel Valdez, Chief External Affairs Officer of Welcoming America
• Camila Rodriguez, Manager of Pre-Investment and Advisory for Infrastructure and Energy in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe of the International Finance Corporation
• Chelsea Andrews, President and Executive Director of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission
• Enrique Norten, Principal of TEN Arquitectos
• Felipe Ribeiro, Chief Creative Officer of Wieden+Kennedy Portland
• Jose Castillo, Principal of a|911 and Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture of Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
• Julia Álvarez Icaza, Mexico City’s Incoming Secretary of the Environment
• Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities
• Manu Buffara, Chef and Owner of Restaurante Manu
• Nahashon Muguna, Managing Director of the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company
• Oleg Polovynko, Advisor to the Mayor on Digitalization of Kyiv City Council, Ukraine
• Oriol Estela, General Coordinator, Metropolitan Strategic Plan of the City of Barcelona, Spain
• Vivian Schiller, Executive Director of Aspen Digital at The Aspen Institute
• Priya Krishna, author and Host of New York Time’s food section
• Youth climate leaders Darren Baine, President of the Young Eye Foundation; Maddie Davidson, student; and Jessica Lima, Founder of Vecino Calidad

Members of the media are invited to apply to attend. Media credentials must be confirmed in advance. For more information, please contact sam@bloomberg.org or jon.purves@aspeninstitute.org.

The conference agenda is available here.

New programming includes:

• A Mayors Innovation Studio will convene over 120 mayors who will learn cutting-edge practices to navigate today’s fractured information landscape so they can cut through, engage communities, and deliver for residents.
• A City Innovation Studio will bring chief data, innovation, and policy officials together with leading experts to unleash the next frontier of generative artificial intelligence implementation in city halls to improve public services.
• Excursions, allowing participants to connect Bloomberg CityLab learnings to place, include explorations of: the future of mobility through the Cablebús system, spaces for youth at Presa de Tarango with love.fútbol, conservation at the Xochimilco Ecological Park and Floating Gardens, and the historic Casa Jardin Ortegaand the UNESCO World Heritage-site Barragán House and Studio.

Among the summit’s confirmed attendees are 123 mayors from 39 countries across six continents including: Adama, Ethiopia; Banjul, Gambia; Baka al-Gharbiya, Israel; Bologna, Italy; Bratislava, Slovakia; Butuan City, Philippines; Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Ganne Tikva, Israel; Gdańsk, Poland; Glasgow, United Kingdom; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Harar, Ethiopia; Helsinki, Finland; Hogla, Israel; Howick, South Africa; Istanbul, Turkey; Juárez, Mexico; Kadima-Zoran, Israel; Kafr Kar’, Israel; Kisumu, Kenya; Kitchener, Canada; Kumasi, Ghana; Las Condes, Chile; Liverpool, United Kingdom; Longueuil, Canada; Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Lusaka, Zambia; Maceió, Brazil; Mansa, Zambia; Masaka, Uganda; Mexico City, Mexico; Misgav, Israel; Mogi das Cruzes, Brazil; Moncton, Canada; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Nairobi, Kenya; Nansana, Uganda; Nesher, Israel; Newcastle, Australia; Nouakchott, Mauritania; Oakville, Canada; Pikine, Senegal; Pimpri-Chinchwad, India; Quelimane City, Mozambique; Reykjavik, Iceland; Rosario, Argentina; Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, France; San Fernando, Chile; San Isidro, Argentina; San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Seongnam, South Korea; Skopje, Macedonia; Soacha, Colombia; Tirana, Albania; Torino, Italy; Tres de Febrero, Argentina; Umm al-Fahm, Israel; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Windhoek, Namibia.

From the United States, among those confirmed to attend are the mayors of: Albany, New York; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Aurora, Illinois; Beaverton, Oregon; Boca Raton, Florida; Boise, Idaho; Boulder, Colorado; Champaign, Illinois; Charleston, South Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Chillicothe, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbia, Missouri; Columbia, South Carolina; Dearborn, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; Des Moines, Iowa; Durham, North Carolina; Flint, Michigan; Fort Collins, Colorado; Gary, Indiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Hampton, Virginia; Hartford, Connecticut; High Point, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; Kansas City, Missouri; Lansing, Michigan; Laredo, Texas; Las Cruces, New Mexico; Lincoln, Nebraska; Little Rock, Arkansas; Lynn, Massachusetts; Missoula, Montana; Montgomery, Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; New Rochelle, New York; Newport News, Virginia; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Paterson, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Pomona, California; Port St. Lucie, Florida; Portsmouth, Virginia; Providence, Rhode Island; Riverside, California; Rochester, Minnesota; Rochester, New York; Salem, Oregon; San Antonio, Texas; San Bernardino, California; Savannah, Georgia; South Bend, Indiana; St. Louis, Missouri; Tacoma, Washington; Tempe, Arizona; Trenton, New Jersey; Union City, California; Vacaville, California; Vancouver, Washington; Washington, D.C; Waterloo, Iowa; and West Palm Beach, Florida.

Previously announced speakers include Michael R. Bloomberg, 108th mayor of New York City, Founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies; Mayor-Elect Clara Brugada of Mexico City, Mexico; Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuéllar of Juárez, Mexico; Mayor Cherelle Parker of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu of Istanbul, Turkey; Mayor David Holt of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; H.E. Hon. Sakaja Arthur Johnson Governor of Nairobi, Africa; Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver, Colorado; Mayor Aleksandra Dulkiewicz of Gdańsk, Poland; Mayor Matteo Lepore of Bologna, Italy; and Mayor Shin Sang-jin of Seongnam City, South Korea; José Antonio Peña Merino, head of Mexico’s Telecommunications and Digital Transformation Agency; Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary-designate; Enrique Peñalosa, author, economist, and former two-time mayor of Bogotá, Colombia; Elsa y Elmar, singer-songwriter and producer; Fatmata Binta, award-winning chef and Founder of Dine on a Mat and Fulani Kitchen Foundation; Fernanda Canales, architect; David Jackson, Director of Local Development Finance of United Nations Capital Development Fund; Asma Khan, chef and Founder of Darjeeling Express; Lesley Lokko, architect and Founder of African Futures Institute; and Maria Vassilakou, former vice mayor of Vienna, Austria and Founder of Vienna Solutions.

Bloomberg CityLab was founded on the principle that important innovation is happening at the local level and that global impact can be achieved when cities share solutions. For over a decade, CityLab summits have convened the most influential mayors and voices from hundreds of cities worldwide. Summits have generated tangible takeaways for attendees and made international headlines. Past CityLab conferences have been hosted in New York, Los Angeles, London, Miami, Paris, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Amsterdam.

To learn more about Bloomberg CityLab 2024, visit citylab.bloomberg.org.

About Bloomberg Philanthropies: 
Bloomberg Philanthropies invests in 700 cities and 150 countries around the world to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. The organization focuses on creating lasting change in five key areas: the Arts, Education, Environment, Government Innovation, and Public Health. Bloomberg Philanthropies encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg’s giving, including his foundation, corporate, and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy that advises cities around the world. In 2023, Bloomberg Philanthropies distributed $3 billion. For more information, please visit  bloomberg.org, sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, and X.

About the Aspen Institute:
The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, please visit www.aspeninstitute.org.

Media Contacts:

Bloomberg Philanthropies:
Sam Fuld, sam@bloomberg.org

The Aspen Institute:
Jon Purves, jon.purves@aspeninstitute.org