What should sustainable cities of the future be like? What is a smart city? Answers to these and many other questions were given by prof. dr hab. Iwona Sagan in an interview from the series 'University conversations about sustainable development'.

We invite you to watch another film in the series 'University conversations about sustainable development' prepared by the Centre for Sustainable Development of the University of Gdańsk. As part of the programme, the Centre popularises research results as well as teaching and project activities related to the sustainable development of scientists, teachers, PhD students and students of the University of Gdańsk. The project is carried out based on interviews, presentations and popular science articles with the indication of source materials.

This time, students' questions were answered by prof. dr hab. Iwona Sagan, an expert on the spatial economy and smart cities, Head of the Department of Social and Economic Geography at the Institute of Social and Economic Geography and Spatial Management at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

- 'The idea of smart cities started with the implementation of advanced technologies that streamlined the operation of the system. Very soon it turned out that this was not enough and fortunately, under the notion of "smart cities", a concept which is to serve harmonious development, also the social dimension started to appear,' - says prof. dr hab. Iwona Sagan.

There was also a theme devoted to sustainable development:

- 'We cannot fail to take advantage of what today's technology offers. [...] All this is to serve what we have been calling for for years, that is, sustainable development. This sustainability must concern the environment and society. If we build dehumanised technopoles, they will not make our lives better, quite the contrary,' - adds prof. dr hab. Iwona Sagan.

The interview was conducted by Marcin Marszałek, an intern at the Centre for Sustainable Development UG.

We invite you to watch the interview