About us
What is CCU?
CCU is an organization dedicated to promote initiatives, research, knowledge gathering and dissemination that would lead to realization of the real potential of our cities as productive, healthy, beautiful, exciting, and efficient places. It is a collective effort to enhance the knowledge about cities and the emerging urban geographies and cultures. It aims to enhance the pride people feel towards their cities. It utilizes and integrates the existing social and professional capital in our cities for strategic urban initiatives. It strives for newer ways of effective engagement with people to bring them on board for the task of making cities better places.
Every urban dweller by virtue of a deep association with the city, feels an inherent need to contribute towards bettering it but being a single entity, lacks the resources to do so in a meaningful way. CCU provides a platform where individuals can come together and engage in sharing, whetting, integrating and implementing ideas aimed at making our cities better places.
CCU banks on the unrealized potential of the diverse knowledge, experiences and expertise available in cities. It is our firm belief that solutions to the enormous challenges faced by cities lie within them, and would be facilitated by diverse actors, different people, multi-disciplinary organizations and varied instruments. We want to focus on urban strengths to tackle the challenges in a smarter and more strategic way, utilizing the social and professional capital that cities possess but hardly use.
Who are 'we'?
We are a team of people from diverse backgrounds such as urban studies, urban design and planning, development management, filmmaking, music, business, education, art, conservation, law (the list keeps growing) brought together by our intentions of making a difference in the cities where we live and work and have grown to love and complain about! We work collectively to enhance and disseminate contemporary thought and knowledge about cities and urban culture not limited to technical planning and management. We hope to generate and enhance the sense of pride, belongingness and ownership that people feel towards cities. (Key Team Members and CCU Volunteers)
Objectives of the CCU
- Urban Pedagogy
>> Enhance awareness and knowledge about cities and its assets as well as issues by utilizing unique urban pedagogy.
>> Promote and support children and youth in understanding their role as urban citizens.
- Knowledge Co-creation & Curation
>> Co-create new knowledge about cities using multi-dimensional lens.
>> Create an open-source Urban Knowledge Repository and curate contemporary debates and deliberations on urban citizenship.
- Research
>> Associate with initiatives or projects that are aligned with objectives of CCU in professional or advisory capacity
>> Carry out research in the area of contemporary urbanism
- Link & Engage
>> Engage people from diverse socio-economic, cultural, political, ethnic and religious backgrounds in the dialogue and decisions about their cities.
Provide a platform for professionals to be responsible citizens to offer their time and expertise for improving the urban environment
>> Bridge the gap between the 'urban' professional and ‘urban’ citizen, enhancing opportunities for urban designers, planners and other professionals to engage effectively with other citizens for improvement of the urban environment
