UBDC presents at the World Urban Forum 2026

The Urban Big Data Centre and Partners had a remarkable participation at the latest Would Urban Forum (WUF) in Baku, Azerbaijan. Within the topic “Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities”.

Thousands of participants discussed the most pressing topics for cities, and especially vulnerable urban communities around the world. UBDC’s participation stands on the IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem and its contributions to provide voice to communities in Africa and other 5 cities from the global south by co-creating and validating datasets that describe multiple dimensions of urban deprivation.

 Prof. João Porto de Albuquerque and Dr Diego Pajarito Grajales led the session IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem – Co-creating regenerative data ecosystems with urban informal communities for justice and transformation at the WUF Campus, an open space with plenty of interaction spaces for academics, representatives from cities, NGOs and all kinds of stakeholders. During the session, more than 30 participants engaged in the demonstration of the innovative validation methodology implemented by the team.

There was a second remarkable participation from UBDC as active members and attendees of the Data Coalition Annual Meeting of the Global Urban Data Coalition (GUDC). Such a group of world leaders discussed the next steps around data generation and analytics for urban spaces, with an emphasis on missing data and multiple complimentary approaches to official statistics.

There were multiple other sessions led and with participation of the IDEAMAPS network partners. Some of them where:

-         Urban Library – Multilateral Consortium and Multistakeholder Collaboration in Knowledge Co-production for Climate-Resilient Cities

-         Urban Academy – Analysis of Urban Basic Services of Importance to Men and Women in Informal Settlements of Lagos and Kano, Nigeria

-         UN Habitat Arena - Transforming informal settlements: Data, standards, and practice, Building Global Partnerships to Monitor SDG 11.1.1 with Geo AI

-         Networking - Lagos to the World, Brick by Brick-Scaling Inclusive Planning Standards and Housing Solutions for Resilient Megacities

 This relevant participation served to strengthen the existing links of UBDC and partners in Kenya, Nigeria, Colombia, The Netherlands, and the USA.

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