The first International Conference on Urban Health and Sustainability, under the title ‘The White Tower Forum on Urban Health and Sustainability’ was held hybrid (in person and online), on June 29 and 30 at Thessaloniki. The main host and organizer of the event was the URBANOME Coordinator & EnvE-Lab Director, Professor Demosthenes Sarigiannis. The two-day event, entitled “The post-COVID 19 era. Healthy, Sustainable Cities: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects”, was organized by the Department of Environmental Engineering (EnvE-Lab) AUTH, the HERACLES Research Lab for Health and Exposure,the URBANOME Project, the ICARUS Project and the Urban Health Cluster.
Special sessions were held with invited speakers that highlighted the importance of adopting urban sustainability in our societies, while interesting panel discussions approached and captured the new post-covid reality, providing the means for a fruitful dialogue between the scientific community and the social and public institutions.
URBANOME Coordinator & EnvE-Lab Director, Professor Demosthenes Sarigiannis set the pace for intriguing conversations regarding Environment, Climate Change & Health, while commenting that the event’s goal was to highlight those concepts that foster the transformation of our cities so that they can promote public health and wellbeing, while they adopt the urban sustainability in their core both in Greece and across Europe.
Invited by URBANOME Proj.Coordinator Prof. Sarigiannis, AUTH iMedPhys Director, Prof. Panagiotis Bamidis also attended the event, participating in a roundtable on “Smart, sustainable & climate-neutral cities; digital partnerships and entrepreneurship”, representing URBANOME and covering the topic of Digital applications for Public Health and their impact in the improvement of citizens’ daily life.
The success and large public attendance lay the foundation for the annual establishment of the conference.
