The Bratislava Summit 2024: Start With Children will be held between 28-29 May in Bratislava, Slovakia. 

The summit aims to initiate a movement that will inspire mayors to lead with a children’s health and wellbeing approach to shaping cities, highlight ways to spread good practices at scale, build new networks for partnerships and collaborations, and establish long-term commitments by creating a mayors’ task force focused on child-friendly planning and design.

Over the two days, the summit will present keynotes, panels, workshops, tours, exhibitions and events in the historical city centre of Bratislava. Plenary speakers will lay out the big-picture: motivations, evidence, and inspiring success cases of designing for the needs of children and caregivers.

Other events will give participants a choice of deep dives into the topics in various interactive formats, from walking and cycling tours to hands-on skills workshops, focused panel discussions and networking events.

Planary speakers and participants include:

- Anna Dworakowska, co-founder at the Polish Smog Alert (one of the most effective campaign groups in the world focusing on policies to improve air quality); speaking on how citizens and parents can organize to address a global issue on a local level. 

- Jan Gehl, one of the 20th and 21st Centuries’ most important voices of urbanism; speaking on human-scale cities, walkable environments and child-centric design principals. 

- Gil Penalosa, globally renowned urbanist and founder of 8 80 Cities; speaking on child-friendly urban planning, including active mobility and safe routes to school, accessible parks and playgrounds and engaging children and youth in urban planning. 

- Ankita Chachra, architect, urban designer and director of Climate at Capita; speaking on the risks that the climate crisis poses to children and their caregivers, while highlighting the opportunities that cities find when they refocus their priorities to support the flourishing of their youngest citizens. 

A list of all the speakers at the conference can be found on the event website. 

The Start with Children Summit will cover: 

- Fostering Citizens of the Future – How to prepare children to be stewards of their community. Considering the impacts of childcare networks on a child’s life and ability to thrive. 

- Scaling Neighborhood Planning to our Smallest Citizens – How a child’s neighborhood affects their educational achievement, emotional development and economic opportunity. Designing public spaces and infrastructure with the needs, safety and well-being of children in mind.  

- Addressing Children’s Vulnerability to Climate Change– How to build better cities to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the adverse effects of climate change. Prioritizing sustainable practices in urban planning and development. 

To register the event and get more information, visit this page. 

Top image courtesy of Bratislava Summit 2024. 

> via Bratislava Summit 2024