Austrian Academy of Sciences, ÖAW
Vienna, Austria, September 29, 2025
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From climate instability to healthcare system shocks and energy transitions – modern problems are deeply interconnected. This symposium tackles these challenges through the lens of complex systems, offering new ways to understand and act on them.
Complex problems don’t fit neatly into disciplines. This event brings together voices from science, engineering, policy and society to build cross-disciplinary insights and solutions, encouraging new connections that mirror the interwoven nature of the challenges we face.
We’re not just dissecting problems – we’re imagining bold, conceptual strategies that can lead to real-world impact. Expect big-picture thinking grounded in practical applications.
Learn how resilience can be designed into systems – from ecosystems to infrastructure – and how that mindset can help society adapt and thrive amidst uncertainty.
Meet leading thinkers, practitioners and change-makers. This is a unique opportunity to form meaningful partnerships and spark innovative projects that extend well beyond the symposium.
The way we live, work, and play is very different today than it was just a few decades ago, thanks in large part to a network of connectivity that now encompasses most people on the planet. In a similar way, today we are at the beginning of a new technological revolution: the Internet is entering the physical space – the traditional domain of architecture and design – becoming an “Internet of Things” or IoT. As such, it is opening the door to a variety of applications that – in a similar way to what happened with the first wave of the Internet – can encompass many domains: from production to citizen participation, from energy to mobility to public hygiene, all of which requiring new insights due to the changes brought forth by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The contribution from Prof. Carlo Ratti will address these issues from a critical point of view through projects by the Senseable City Laboratory, a research initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the design office Carlo Ratti Associati.
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