The Way Forward

The way forward

We invited participants to engage with three major parts of our current work like

·???????Advocacy and capacity building

·???????Future think

·???????Collaboration and knowledge building

In the first part Advocacy and capacity building we featured the ITACUS National Actions Think Deep Programme (NATDP) and how it is leading to activities at national level focusing on advocacy and capacity building. We were joined by AG 4 NATDP lead Abidemi Agwor (Nigeria), Vincent Rono (Kenya) and the deputy of Her Excellency Opunimi Akinkugbe, the Nigerian Ambassador to Greece. We heard about the setting up of Think Deep Kenya and the ROWGA Think Deep Programme for Cities that was setup in Nigeria. Two students who won the essay competition joined us live from Lagos, Nigeria.

?States Abidemi:?"Personally, the highlight was the opportunity to showcase our works with students in Nigeria to the world. Our inaugural Universities THINKDEEP campaign culminated in the Live presentation of the winning essays by students from Nigeria at the ITACUS session at the congress".

The entire program spanned 6 months of rigorous engagement with 150 students who registered for the inaugural campaign. We had approximately 30 hours of contact time mentoring these students, through several short courses; introduction to Tunnelling and Underground Space use, scenario planning reflecting social, economic and environmental dynamics of cities, case studies of examples of tunnelling and underground interventions globally that have impacted socioeconomic outlooks of cities. All with the aim of identifying challenges within their cities whilst proposing interventions that explore a sustainable adoption of tunnelling and underground Space use.

"To say I was blown away by the results we had is an understatement. 90% of these students never had any prior training in the subject matter, formal or informal. We were also very intentional about encouraging multidisciplinary participations, as 50% of registrants were non engineering students. There is still a lot to do, however it is not just important to empower young professionals with the right tools but more importantly, the voice to influence the outlook of cities they love and will live in the next couple of decades".

?Writes Abigail Wogor: "It was indeed an awesome experience for the last 6months for I and my team member @Emmanuel Ekanem #TEAMROYALTY in participating in the Inugural #THINKDEEP Program for Nigeria Universities…. We are grateful to Han Admiraal and Antonia Cornaro for their unrelentless support throughout the mentoring sessions, and to Abidemi Agwor our facilitator who made sure the competition became a success".

"We believe that underground space use will be utilised and help solve some challenges faced in our society. We were privileged to present our essay at the #WTC2023 in Athens and be part of the panel session" was conveyed by the awarded students.

?In the second part we embarked on thinking future. Joining us were Veronika Petschen , SCAUT, the Swiss Centre for Applied Underground Technology and Dr. Michael Kompatscher , Hagerbach Test Gallery in a conversation on future trends. We discussed examples of how industry can be challenged and involved in exploring new ways forward. Whether it is developing new energy solutions or designing a Mars habitat, what role can underground space play in this? Can we translate what is needed for outer space to solutions for our own planet?

?We discussed how the Hagerbach Test Gallery (VersuchsStollen Hagerbach AG) Test Gallery with the help of SCAUT - Swiss Center of Applied Underground Technologies and participating partners like ITACUS and Mission Earth First is interacting with pioneering startups to develop solutions for the visionary idea of living on Mars or other planets. Solutions include those that offer products/services that could make life on Mars possible. Be it solutions for constructing buildings/caverns, energy, air or water management, health & safety, transportation, food production, or communication. The goal is a self-sustaining habitat based on the principles of a circular economy. These new technologies and principles can be applied and tested in underground spaces. The so-called Mars Habitat challenge event is held annually in conjunction with Venturelab.

We then transitioned to the third and final part collaboration and knowledge building: Developing underground spaces requires collaboration between professionals from various disciplines. The Young Professionals’ Think Deep Programme (YPTDP) aims at achieving this through hands on weeklong workshops. Our most recent one was held in Gdansk, Poland. AG 1, YPTDP co-lead Petr Salak (Israel) was joined live on stage by WG11 animateur Marcel 't Hart (the Netherlands) and urban planner Konstantinos Karantzoulis (Greece) to report back on this unique way of creating multidisciplinary solutions for urban challenges. ?They shared four proposals which the groups had worked on during the week-long stay with a final presentation to the city government.

Petr and colleagues explained the workflow of the four teams: definition of the challenge, SWOT analysis and first ideas, strategic solutions, and design proposals, culminating in a final presentation to the city government. The YPTDPs are carried out in partnership with ISOCARP - International Society of City and Regional Planners . Thanks go to Piotr Lorens , Bahaa Bou Kalfouni , Rolf Schuett and Zeynep Gunay for making this one a success. The final report is currently being elaborated.

"The most fascinating thing about YPTDP is the international and multidisciplinary approach. Our group of tutors, coordinators and young professionals travelled to Gdańsk, from 18 different countries! We have within young professionals 12 Urban Planners, 5 Architects and 4 Civil/Tunnel engineers." he says. Marcel mentioned the difficulty of speaking "different (professional) languages" but managing to break the ice and collaborating to the fullest at the end!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to making this a successful session and to our audience who was engaged and enthusiastic.

ITA-AITES

#thinkdeep #knowledgesharing #advocacy