Conversations that move cities forward.
Our festivals and salons convene policymakers, developers, and practitioners—creating space for exchange and new directions in citymaking.
Creators in Residence
A cohort. One week. A city in conversation.
A week-long residency anchored by Helen Marriage, joined by Charles Landry, Elinor Seath and Clare Inkster — with Carla & Viola Bartoli of Farm Cultural Park joining as Young Creators. The cohort comes together publicly at the inaugural festival on 17 June — the one moment to hear them in conversation, on stage, in Singapore.
India’s Next Cities — Policy, Capital, Delivery
The ULI India & Leadership for Cities Session — programmed inside the World Cities Summit’s Financing for Cities track.
India will urbanise more in the next twenty-five years than at any point in its history, and more than two-thirds of the urban India of 2050 is yet to be built. The binding constraint is no longer ambition — it is the missing handshake between Indian cities and the patient capital, planning frameworks and delivery models that could underwrite them at scale.
Sanjeev Sanyal, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, opens with the macroeconomic case for a generational reset. Three short, chaired panels then carry the conversation — on Policy (how India is changing the way it plans, governs and builds capacity for cities), Capital (what kind of capital a next-generation Indian city actually needs), and Delivery (who builds and runs a city in the next-cities era — and what “delivered” now means).
Curated by Leadership for Cities in collaboration with ULI India, and with the Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC), Singapore. Now programmed inside the World Cities Summit as part of its Financing for Cities thematic track.
- 11:00 · 10mWelcome & Opening RemarksRohan Sikri (Chairman, ULI India) · Anupam Yog (Managing Partner, XDG Labs)
- 11:10 · 35mExecutive Frame — FiresideSanjeev Sanyal (Member, Economic Advisory Council, Prime Minister of India) in conversation with chair Nipun Sahni (Chairman, ULI Delhi District Council; Founder, REZONE Investments).
- 11:45 · 35mPanel — Policy, Capital & DeliveryChair: Manasvini Hariharan (Executive Director, ULI India). With Chirayu J. Bhatt (Deputy Provost, CEPT University), Anita Kumar (Director, Policy & Insights, Janaagraha) and Manvendra Singh Shekhawat (Founder, Dhun Life).
- 12:20 · 5mExecutive TakeawayManas Rath (Founder, Better Place Foundation) — synthesises across the fireside and panel, and bridges into the wider WCS programme.
- 12:25 · 5mClosing RemarksPeter Hyland (Chair, Leadership for Cities) — institutional close.
The Art of Citymaking
Inaugural Festival
Cities are shaped every day—through people, culture, and the rhythms of lived experience.
The Art of Citymaking Festival brings together urban leaders, creatives, policymakers, and practitioners to explore how cities evolve as places to live, connect, and participate.
India & The Policy Pivot
An evening with Sanjeev Sanyal on India’s next chapter — where reform, infrastructure, digital systems and urban growth converge within a shifting global order.
PAFI · TiE Singapore · Leadership for Cities · XDG LabsCo-presented by the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI), TiE Singapore, Leadership for Cities (LfC), and XDG Labs, the conversation examines the policy shifts, citymaking challenges and strategic opportunities shaping India’s trajectory — and why Singapore is more closely tied to that story than is often assumed, including the emerging entrepreneurial opportunities across the Singapore–India corridor.
Drawing on themes from The Policy Pivot, Sanjeev Sanyal (Member, Economic Advisory Council, Prime Minister of India) will be joined by Ajay Khanna (Founder of PAFI and co-editor of The Policy Pivot), T. S. Vishwanath (Founding Member & Past President of PAFI; Founder of VeK Policy & Research), and Shivnath Thukral (President of PAFI; VP, Public Policy & Government Affairs, PhonePe) for a discussion on policy, growth, and citymaking at scale. The dialogue is moderated by Roshini Bakshi (TiE Charter Member; MD, Everstone Capital) and hosted by Anupam Yog (Managing Partner, XDG Labs).
All three PAFI panellists bring perspectives spanning trade policy, public affairs, communications and technology. A nine-member PAFI delegation will also be in attendance.
