A series of seven lectures have been organized by the Graduate Institute of Future Studies delivered between 1 and 4 of May at the Tamsui, Lanyang and Cyber campuses respectively. These lectures addressed issues related to the future of the world cities, given by 7 scholars from the institute. Their lectures invited students to look at the urban development from a novel perspective and urged them to be more actively involved in the world we live in.

The central theme of these lectures focus on the rapid changes that have been occurring in recent years through technology and high growth and mobility of population, which in turn have shifted the definition and borders of not only modern cities but also countries. Therefore, futures countries and cities will have to redraw their map and the shape of this map will be largely decided by many cross-bordered international corporations. Based on this concept, cities in the future can be loosely divided into TechnoCity, EcoCity, Slow Life City, and Lost City. The lectures are thus organized around these various topics. Issues on the implications on wars, conflicts and intrigues deriving from these changes were also discussed.

In order to help students to get into the “map” of different cities, lecturers prepared interesting and challenging quizzes—one deals with the most amazing facts about certain cities, while another deals with the representative music of some big and famous cities. These tricks certainly worked as most students who joined the lectures enjoyed these topics and begged for more.