Exhibition

The Singapore Pavilion showcases Singapore’s innovation and strides in urban solutions that drive liveability, sustainability, and resilience. Led by the public sector in partnership with industry, academia, civic organisations, and the community, the Singapore Pavilion presents bold ideas that can help shape the future of industries and communities to be inclusive and sustainable while appreciating our rich culture and heritage.

Delegates can explore how Singapore envisions our city of tomorrow, integrating with nature and rejuvenating spaces for the well-being of our citizens. Together, the Pavilion’s showcases capture Singapore’s dynamic approach to building future-ready cities and we invite the world to collaborate in reimagining sustainable urban development for all.

• Lived Heritage: Championing Heritage for Lovable Cities
  presented by National Heritage Board
  
• Nature for Urban Well-being
  presented by National Parks Board
  
• Reimagining Urban Spaces for Active Living
  presented by Sport Singapore
  
• Re-Inventing Cities of Tomorrow
  presented by Ministry of National Development
  
• Revitalising Cities for Inclusive, Sustainable Communities
  presented by Housing & Development Board
  
• Shaping the Future of Industries in Cities
  presented by JTC Corporation
  
• Singapore Food Story 2: Strengthening Our Food Resilience
  presented by Singapore Food Agency
  
• Space for our Dreams
  presented by Urban Redevelopment Authority
  

The Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC), Singapore, presents the CLC World Stage. Taking place from 15 – 16 June, join experts, academia, and young leaders for more up-close exchanges on urban innovation, liveability and sustainability.

The CLC World Stage presents an exciting line up of focused conversations, intimate fireside chats, and special presentations featuring publications and projects from WCS 2026.

Time	Programme
11.00am – 11.30am	Meet the Author: Arun Jain, FAICP, Urban Designer, Urban Strategist and Fulbright Specialist – "Reframing Cities for Resilience: Embracing Complex & Uncertain Futures”
2.00pm – 2.45pm	ULI Waterside Chat: Advancing Knowledge Exchange for Liveable and Resilient Cities Aimee Witteman, Chief Impact Officer, ULI Scott Dunn, Strategy & Growth Lead, Asia, AECOM and Asia Pacific Chair, ULI
3.00pm – 5.15pm	WCS Science of Cities Spotlight
5.15pm – 5.30pm	Norman Foster Institute: The Institute as Urban Laboratory Daniel Liang Xu, Cities and Design Lead

Time	Programme
9.00am – 10.15am	NUS Cities: Next-generation Tech and New Urban Realities Moderator: Professor Zhou Yimin, Director (Advisory), NUS Cities Mr Hou Zhaoqi, Lead, APAC Public Sector Marketing Strategy Solution, Huawei Singapore Prof Ng See Kiong, Director of AI Technology, AI Singapore; Deputy Director, Institute of Data Science, National University of Singapore
10.30am – 12.00pm	Shaping Liveable Cities: CLC Publications Spotlight Peter Ortner, Assistant Professor, Architecture and Sustainable Design, Singapore University of Technology and Design Maria Vassilakou, Founder and CEO, Vassilakou Urban Consulting, GmbH, Vienna Solutions Chua Yen Kheng, Assistant Vice President at Mandai Wildlife Group
2.00pm – 3.45pm	Fan the Flame: Young Leaders’ Insights Fireside chat with Denyse Tan and Jarel Ang from Urban Kakis WCS Young Leaders

15 June, Monday

Meet the Author: Arun Jain - "Reframing Cities for Resilience: Embracing Complex & Uncertain Futures”
Through a short author sharing by Arun Jain followed by an open dialogue with the audience, this session surfaces the book's key ideas and their implications for city leaders, policymakers and practitioners navigating increasingly uncertain urban futures. It provides an opportunity for the international WCS audience to engage directly with the author and reflect on how these perspectives can inform their own contexts and decisions.

ULI Waterside Chat: Advancing Knowledge Exchange for Liveable and Resilient Cities
As cities around the world confront accelerating climate, social, and economic challenges, the role of strong global leadership and trusted knowledge networks has never been more critical. This discussion brings together Urban Land Institute (ULI) leadership on the CLC stage to explore how ULI’s global platform, research, and cross sector community can translate international best practice into locally relevant, market ready urban solutions.

The conversation will reflect on ULI’s unique role in shaping more liveable, resilient, and inclusive cities through its worldwide membership, thought leadership, and city to city learning networks. It will highlight how ULI connects public and private sector leaders, advances applied urban knowledge and drives impact at scale by aligning global insights with local market realities.

WCS Science of Cities Spotlight @ CLC World Stage

WCS Science of Cities Symposium (SOCS) Spotlight at the CLC World Stage is a curated platform featuring selected WCS SOCS ideas and research on Responsive Cities. For more info, visit WCS Science of Cities Symposium.

16 June, Tuesday

NUS Cities: Next-generation Tech and New Urban Realities
As 2050 approaches, global cities sit at a radical intersection of hyper-automation, rapid AI breakthroughs, and shifting urban realities. What does the foundational infrastructure of a next-generation smart city actually look like, and how are industry leaders deploying it today? Bringing together global technology giants and learning research institution, this session shifts the spotlight to the frontlines of real-world technological application. Beyond the innovation, the panel will confront a critical reflection: Is rapid technological development outpacing current policy frameworks?

Designed for global city leaders and policymakers, this dialogue and panel discussion explores the latest initiatives and technological capabilities, as well as the essential regulatory guardrails to manage ecosystem risks and bridge the governance gap, ensuring the smart cities of tomorrow remain balanced, resilient, and human-centered.

Shaping Liveable Cities: CLC Publications Spotlight
This session brings together CLC’s latest research work with a spotlight on CLC’s latest publications that explore how cities can translate emerging ideas into practical approaches for morea liveable, sustainable and resilient urban environments.

Through a curated spotlight and expert sharing, the session surfaces key themes related to the publications and reflects on how these can be applied in real-world contexts. The format allows for a more focused and conversational exploration of key ideas emerging from the publications, complementing the main launches at plenary level.

Fan the Flame: Young Leaders’ Insights

This session highlights how young leaders are actively shaping cities today — through emerging practices, lived experience, and forward-looking ideas. This session positions youth young leaders not just as future leaders, but as active contributors to urban life and innovation. It brings together ground-up civic perspectives and actionable insights from emerging young leaders.

The session will feature two segments – a fireside chat with Urban Kakis and a sharing session from WCS Young Leaders who attended the WCS Young Leaders Symposium Workshop.

For more info, visit WCS Young Leaders.

Time	Programme
11.15am - 12.15pm	City Developments Limited “Heat, Health and Carbon Discussion” This session brings together leading voices across industry, policy, academia and innovation to examine one of the most urgent challenges facing cities today: the growing intersection between rising urban heat, public health, and the carbon footprint of the built environment. The discussion will be moderated by Esther An, Chief Sustainability Officer, CDL Panelists: • Karishma Kashyap, Associate Director, Cities, States & Regions, CDP • Niels de Boer, Chief Operating Officer & Senior Programme Director, ERI@N, NTU • Chee Kean Lim, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon1010 • Derek Yoh, Chief Technology Officer, CBM • Keng Liang Cheng, Chief Executive Officer, Global Healthcare SG Pte Ltd The conversation will explore how the built environment can evolve to better respond to these interconnected challenges. Discussions will cover strategies ranging from climate-responsive urban design and low-carbon building materials, cooling technologies, and data-driven approaches to heat resilience. The session will also examine the role of policy, cross-sector collaboration, and long-term planning in shaping healthier and more sustainable cities.
12:35 pm - 12:55 pm	Therme Singapore “Orchid to Icon: Designing Therme Singapore” Chan Hui Min Director of DP Architects, and Founder of Spatial Intelligence for Design Therme Singapore's striking orchid-inspired form demonstrates how artistic vision must integrate with engineering constraints. This presentation reveals the design journey—showcasing how advanced technology and innovative integrated workflows solved complex challenges around structural optimization, material innovation, solar performance, façade systems, and water management. Discover how DP Architects transformed biological inspiration into one of Marina South's most distinctive architectural landmarks.
2:35 pm - 2:55 pm	Singapore Management University “AI and the Ocean: A City Perspective” Dr Simon JD Schillebeeckx Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University; and Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Handprint* This presentation explores the critical relationship between cities and the ocean through the lens of artificial intelligence. While nearly 40% of the global population lives near coastlines and depends on ocean systems for food, protection, and livelihoods, we have mapped less than a quarter of the ocean floor. AI is rapidly improving our ability to observe and understand these systems, yet it remains largely disconnected from the interventions needed to sustain them. Using a systems-based framework, the talk highlights a growing imbalance between knowledge and action, and the urgent need to scale real-world solutions—from ecosystem restoration to infrastructure. Ultimately, the presentation argues that the future of coastal cities will depend not just on better data, but on faster, more effective action in the ocean systems they rely on. *About Handprint - is a startup that helps banks and fintechs turn everyday banking transactions into ocean conservation actions. By embedding verified ocean regeneration into mobile banking apps via an API, customers earn points directed toward ocean restoration projects of their choice. Built on behavioural science – showing people respond better to contribution than guilt – it gives banks a loyalty and engagement tool with a sustainability story, with reported results of an 875% uplift in engagement. In short, it makes banking feel purposeful.
3:05 pm - 3:25 pm	Google “Empowering Smarter Cities: Bridging Authoritative Data and Global Mobility with Google Maps and Waze” Assaf Eisenberg, Product Manager, Waze Siddhanth Munukutla, Product Manager, Google Maps This session explores the powerful synergy between Google’s geospatial data contribution platforms—Google Maps Content Partners (GMCP) and Waze for Cities—and the public sector. By integrating authoritative data directly into the mapping ecosystem, these programs transform local expertise into global impact. We will examine how authorities can enhance urban mobility, optimize traffic management, and strengthen community connectivity. Attendees will learn how cities can leverage Google’s scale to enhance citizen well-being, ensuring that the digital map reflects the real-world complexity of modern urban environments.
3:35 pm - 4:05 pm	NUS Cities / NUS-Keppel “NUS Cities: INSPIRE, INNOVATE, IMPACT: What Makes a City Thrive?” Prof. Zhou Yimin Director (Advisory), NUS Cities How do cities continue to thrive in an increasingly complex world? As cities confront climate pressures, rising temperatures, congestion, supply chain disruptions, and rapid urbanisation, some are finding new ways to adapt, innovate, and shape their own futures. In this session, NUS Cities explores how cities are transforming challenges into opportunities through visionary leadership, governance innovation, and collaborative problem-solving. Through stories from regional master planning projects in Malaysia, resilient water systems in Indonesia, and leadership development initiatives in the UAE, discover how NUS Cities’ “Inspire–Innovate–Impact” ecosystem bridges academic depth with practical execution to deliver impact felt on the ground. The session will also look ahead to how data, urban intelligence, and emerging AI technologies may help future-ready cities think ahead, adapt faster, and learn to act more intelligently together with greater confidence and foresight. “NUS-KEPPEL Green Real Estate Integrated Valuation Toolkit (GRIT)” Associate Professor Weina Zhang NUS Business School, National University of Singapore Raymond Koh, Keppel Sustainable and Green Finance Institute (SGFIN) was established by the National University of Singapore (NUS) to provide deep research capabilities in sustainable and green finance and to contribute thought leadership that shapes sustainability outcomes in policymaking across the financial sector and the economy at large. Keppel Real Estate Division utilizes technology- and sustainability-led operations to help asset owners meet their operational and financial objectives. Developers, asset owners, and investors face pressing challenges: while green buildings are increasingly expected to support net-zero, resilience, and liveability goals, traditional financial valuation tools are inadequate to capture the broader sustainability outcomes of green interventions, leading to possible under-investment or misguided decisions. In response, SGFIN and KRES collaborated to launch the NUS-KEPPEL Green Real Estate Integrated Valuation Toolkit (GRIT). Built on the Integrated Return on Investment (IROI) methodology, GRIT converts sustainability outcomes into a common monetary value that can be easily communicated and understood by stakeholders. The toolkit connects levers used by developers with financial benefits and other intangible (co-)benefits accruing to tenants, investors, and general public. Keppel Bay Tower (KBT) made history in 2020 as Singapore’s first Green Mark Platinum Zero Energy-certified commercial building following a comprehensive green retrofit. Using the case study of KBT, we will present the key value drivers contributing to positive operating cash flow after its green retrofit. GRIT can help other developers identify clear trade-offs between the investment and returns from green interventions already adopted or under consideration.
4:15 pm - 4:45 pm	Mastercard “Mastercard Payments Data Insights for City Planning” Mr. Bai Zhiyong Vice President, Services Business Development This presentation will explore how Mastercard payments insights empower city planners to design more vibrant, inclusive, and economically resilient cities using data that reflects real human behavior. Over decades, Mastercard has evolved to become a trusted partner to governments and cities, helping city planners implement dynamic, evidence-led decision making. The presentation will illustrate how these insights translate into real-world applications – revealing demand patterns, district vibrancy, and economic flows at a granular geographic level – while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and data security.

Time	Programme
09:35 am - 09:55 am	SUTD “The AI and Smart City, the new Cybernetic City? Feeding back on feedback” Dr Sam Conrad Joyce Associate Professor, Architecture and Sustainable Design Pillar Design AI Cluster (joint appointment) Singapore University of Technology and Design With the rise of Smart Cities and Digital Twins, urban sensors, big-data, analytics, and dashboards are merging with AI, LLM’s, RAG, Generative-AI, and deep learning. We arguably stand at the brink of a new ‘Precambrian Explosion’ in tools and approaches to understand the city through data and act on it (semi)autonomously. And just as importantly these methods are increasingly becoming intellectual paradigms; ways we see and think about the world. This presentation discusses practically and theoretically the rapid development and opportunities of AI for cities, specifically considering the longer-term future horizon. But frames this exploration by tracing back its genesis in Cybernetics; a comparable period of technological innovation, exploration, and application in the 1950’s to 70’s. Arguably the first largescale scientific effort to come up with an integrated theory for systems and control, that fused informational, biological, and social feedback concepts. Giving birth to fundamental methods and technologies, such as computers, control theory, system science, artificial neural-networks, and autopoiesis. now fundamental and its application in city management, planning, and beyond. Examining these mirrored eras both new and old, where biologically derived foundational technologies, potential impact on policy, governing systems, and ultimately models of urban control. To understand the similarities and differences in paradigm, considering what we can learn from the past, both to avoid the repeating same issues, but also towards realizing the potential of current proposed futures. Expanding into new cutting-edge feedback methods like biology inspired Free Energy Principle, informational Bayesian Active Inference, and socially inspired Agentic-AI.
10:35 am - 10:55 am	Arup “Connected Intelligence for Cities” Serene Chen, Senior Geospatial Consultant Victoria See, Sustainability Consultant Cities today are under pressure to deliver sustainable growth, resilience, and climate responsiveness amid rising urban complexity. In the digital twin era, meeting these challenges requires connected intelligence – integrating fragmented datasets, urban domains and analytical tools to support more informed urban decision-making. This presentation will demonstrate how city intelligence can be reconstructed from legacy data at scale, unlocking greater value from these fragmented datasets that exist in many cities today. Through a project example focused on Singapore’s public housing, the session will demonstrate how legacy housing data can be transformed into a scalable digital foundation for integrated urban analysis and planning. Beyond reconstruction, the session will demonstrate how structured city intelligence can connect with other digital tools and datasets – particularly climate intelligence – to better understand the interdependencies between urban systems, built form, environment, and communities. Focusing on urban heat in cities, the presentation will showcase how connected intelligence can support more holistic and data-driven approaches towards climate-responsive planning, future urban decision-making and resilience.
11:05 am - 11:25 am	Surbana Jurong “A Way Back to Regenerative Design” Jamie Miller Director, Regenerative Design Cities today face a difficult reality. They are expected to do more with less, respond to changing climate conditions, de-risk billion-dollar investments, support economic growth, and safeguard the well-being of communities – all within environments that are increasingly complex and uncertain. And now, we are asking them to be regenerative. Simply doing less harm is no longer enough. There is a growing expectation for cities to go further – to create systems, designs, and communities that restore, renew, and give back more than they take. But what does that actually look like in practice? The term “regenerative” is now widely used, yet its application often lacks clarify. It can feel aspirational, even abstract – and at times, it risks implying that current approaches are inherently insufficient without offering a clear pathway forward. If regenerative design is the destination, many cities still need a map.
1:35 pm - 1:55 pm	City of Santiago de Cali Mr. Roger Mina General Manager of EMCALI Mr. Mina will showcase how Cali is advancing a regenerative urban transformation of its historic city centre through the integration of sustainable infrastructure, public space revitalization, water-sensitive urban development, and innovative governance models, creating a more resilient, inclusive, and liveable urban core.
2:35 pm - 3:30 pm	City Developments Limited “Nature-Based Solutions in Action Discussion” This session brings together leading experts from NUS and industry to explore how scientific research on regenerative microforests can be translated into real-world applications. The discussion will also explore implementation challenges, measurement frameworks, and the role of public-private partnerships in advancing nature-based solutions. The discussion will be moderated by Esther An, Chief Sustainability Officer, CDL Panelists: • Professor Veera Sekaran, National University’s President’s Office, Engineered Regenerative nature-based solutions • Associate Professor Adrian Loo, Deputy Director, NUS centre for nature-based Climate Solutions • Lynn Lee, Project Director, COEN The CDL MicroForest at City Square Mall offers a pioneering example of how regenerative, research-driven interventions can be embedded within dense urban environments. Developed through a collaboration between City Developments Limited (CDL), the National University of Singapore (NUS), and public agencies, the CDL MicroForest serves as a living laboratory to test nature-based solutions for urban heat mitigation and biodiversity restoration, with potential for scaling up across other developments.
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm	City Developments Limited Saving Glaciers and Oceans Alliance The Saving Glaciers & Oceans Alliance Launch, held as part of the World Cities Summit 2026, convenes global leaders, scientists, explorers, and sustainability practitioners to address the accelerating impacts of climate change on the world’s cryosphere and oceans. Covering more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, the oceans are central to regulating global climate systems, sustaining biodiversity, and supporting economic and social systems worldwide. At the same time, polar regions and glaciers are undergoing rapid transformation, with far-reaching implications for cities and coastal communities. This session brings together leading voices working at the forefront of climate research, exploration, and conservation to share evidence-based insights and identify pathways for coordinated global action. It will feature insights from renowned polar explorer Sir Robert Swan, award-winning ocean photographer Michael Aw, and Andrea Erickson from The Nature Conservancy. Each speaker will share frontline perspectives on the impacts of climate change and highlight emerging pathways toward a more resilient and sustainable future. A fireside chat, moderated by Esther An, Chief Sustainability Officer of CDL, will bring these perspectives together to explore opportunities for cross-sector collaboration and collective climate action. The session will culminate in the official launch of the Saving Glaciers & Oceans Alliance, uniting cities, countries, NGOs, and industry partners in a shared commitment to safeguarding the planet’s most critical ecosystems.

Innovators: 

• Ailytics
• AiR Digital / Pan United 
• Carbon1010 by SUTD
• CBM
• ConcreteAI
• EcoVolt
• Energy Research Institute ERI@N
• Entropy Lab
• FloodX / Flexi Systems
• Flora Aer
• Global Healthcare SG
• GreenPhyto
• GWS Living Art
• H3ZOOM
• Hocklim Engineering Pte Ltd
• Joe Green
• N&E Innovations
• Pivot
• SingHealth
• V-Plus Agritech
• WaveScan
• WiDUZ 

Find out more about the innovators:
WCS 2026 Innovators Alley [PDF: 260KB]