Pioneering a vital forward shift.
Cities worldwide are actively exploring digital twin technology—a critical tool for navigating the complex adaptation challenges they face. However, current offerings have significant limitations:
• Closed and Costly Systems: Many digital twin solutions operate as proprietary ‘black boxes,’ resulting in high costs, limited customization, and significant privacy concerns.
• Narrow Focus and Oversimplification: Existing platforms often prioritize environmental and physical dynamics while overlooking the rich human aspects of urban life and failing to model complex interactions among various urban systems.
• Limited Accessibility and Engagement: Typically designed for municipal authorities and technical experts, these technologies exclude broader stakeholder participation, potentially increasing inequalities and eroding public trust.
• Integration and Scalability Challenges: Many solutions struggle with data integration from diverse sources, lack interoperability within and across cities, and face scalability issues as urban data grows in volume and complexity.
• Insufficient Real-Time Capabilities: Existing solutions often lack the ability to process and respond to data in real time, hindering dynamic urban management and rapid adaptation to changing conditions.
A rare opportunity exists today for philanthropic capital to channel the momentum toward open, collaborative models that leverage AI and collective intelligence to create significant social, economic, and environmental value. By addressing critical adaptation challenges—such as the health impacts of extreme heat, increasingly recognized as urgent social and political priorities—these models can transform how cities address complex challenges in the years to come.
Founding team
Orchestrated by:
Robert Kirkpatrick
Robert Kirkpatrick is a tech innovator with 25+ years of experience leveraging responsible AI and data for social impact. As the founding Executive Director of UN Global Pulse, he established strategic partnerships with major technology companies to drive data-driven public good initiatives. After working at two tech startups, Robert also led innovation at Google’s InSTEDD and Microsoft’s Humanitarian Systems Team, developing innovative solutions for public health, crisis prevention, and global development.
Co-led by:
Nicolás Azócar
With over 12 years of experience in international development and decentralized cooperation, Nicolás advises cities on resource mobilization, public-private partnerships, and climate change adaptation. A lawyer with two MScs in sustainability and public policy, he has worked with the UN, multilateral banks, and led initiatives with the Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation and Dalberg Catalyst.
Kari Aina Eik
Kari has over 20 years of leadership in global markets, cities, and UN programs, specializing in Smart Cities and sustainability. She founded the United Cities Funds and played a key role in developing Norway’s digital twin and sustainability centers, supporting investments for sustainable urban development.
William Hoffman
William has over two decades of experience in technology policy, strategic communications, and emerging tech governance. Formerly at the World Economic Forum, he has spearheaded initiatives on responsible AI, privacy, and financial innovation, mobilizing diverse stakeholders for sustainable, inclusive urban development and responsible innovation.
San Rahi
San has helped global brands become market leaders through innovation and sustainable growth for over two decades, earning accolades like Emmy and Cannes Lions awards. He has forged impactful partnerships, including with the UN, advising businesses on aligning strategies with social impact to ensure a thriving future for all.
Co-founded and advised by
Harvey Rubin, MD
Laura Lee
Saleem Ali
Why Adaptive Cities
Empowering urban communities with data-driven insights and collective intelligence to address tomorrow's challenges today.
Urban communities lack the integrated, forward-looking insights needed to address complex 21st-century challenges.
Fragmented data and siloed systems hinder collaborative, proactive planning, impeding the emergence of resilient, sustainable cities capable of adapting to rapid change.
Cities worldwide face unprecedented challenges due to climate change, rapid urbanization, and growing inequalities. These issues demand innovative, collaborative solutions on a global scale.
Recognizing these challenges, several residents of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center—Dr. Harvey Rubin, Dr. Laura Lee, and Dr. Saleem Ali—conceived of Adaptive Cities, a global initiative to catalyze a paradigm shift in how we plan, govern, and experience cities. The initiative's initial focus is on the critical nexus of extreme heat and its health impacts.
In partnership with Dalberg Catalyst and former head of UN Global Pulse Robert Kirkpatrick, the scope of Adaptive Cities was refined through the 17 Rooms design process in 2023, co-convened by the Rockefeller Foundation and Brookings Institution. The initiative aims to foster locally-led, network-supported, collaborative approaches that build more responsive, regenerative, and people-centered urban environments.
Consultations with Chief Heat Officers worldwide revealed a fundamental challenge: urban communities need integrated data, prescriptive analytics, and open innovation to proactively and dynamically adapt to complex climate and development challenges.
The time has come for a transformative approach to digital twin technology—one that is open, inclusive, and fully harnesses the combined power of AI and collective intelligence to empower urban communities to share insights, collaborate on solutions, and thrive.
Partner organizations
Jordan Fabyanske
Chied Program Officer
Co-created and stewarded with Dalberg Catalyst