Proactive cities. How to address urban challenges?

Isabella Longo is Project Director of BIT Habitat, the Urban Innovation Center of Barcelona City Council. Project director with an engineering and urban planning background and an experience of more than 15 years in innovation related fields: strategic urban planning, design of data-driven urban policies, economic development strategies, landscape and heritage dynamization, social and cultural innovation, content curation, events coordination. Trend-watcher, passionate about city, society, sustainability, innovation, digital transformation, arts and culture, world-changing ideas.

Graduated in Environmental Sciences at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice in 2003, she obtained a master's degree in Land Use and Water Management in Developing Countries at the Bicocca University of Milan. After some experience in designing and supporting sustainable development actions, management of natural resources and water and sanitation in Italy and abroad, he has collaborated with various Italian public, private and third sector entities on the issues of sustainable and responsible management of natural resources and the management of water resources in a climate change context. Between 2012 and 2018 you were the Italian referent freshwater for the WWF European Alpine Programme. Since 2012 he has been following the themes of sustainability and urban regeneration, through the use of Nature-Based Solutions for urban regeneration, leveraging ecosystem services to improve the quality of life in cities in response and mitigation to climate change.

He directed the town planning offices of the municipalities of Signa (1980-1986), Campi Bisenzio (1986-1988) and Sesto Fiorentino (1988-1994). From '94 to '99 he was head of the 'Infrastructures' service of the Department of Territorial and Environmental Policies of the Region of Tuscany; member of the technical group for the reconstruction of the areas of Garfagnana and Versilia affected by the floods of '96. Member of the National Observatory for monitoring the construction of the Florence-Bologna high-speed railway line. A member of the PCI since 1975 and of the PDS since 1991, he was a councillor in District 3, acting as group leader; he was a municipal councillor from '91 to '95; from '96 to '98 he was in charge of the area programme in the secretariat of the PDS Florentine Metropolitan Union.