Alfonso Vegara

Founder and honorary president metropoli foundation

Architect, Economist and Sociologist. D. in Urban and Regional Planning. He has been professor of Urban Planning at the School of Architecture of Madrid, as well as at the University of Navarra. Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and advisor to the Department of Urban Planning at the Zurich Polytechnic ETH.

Former President of ISOCARP, the International Association of City Planners, which has members in 70 countries around the world. He is Fellow and Trustee of the Eisenhower Fellowships; in 2014 he received the "EF Distinguished Alumnus Award". Since 2005 he has been the Honorary Consul General of Singapore in Madrid.

His ideas and projects have been disseminated through more than 30 books and international conferences in Europe, United States of America, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Africa. His projects have been awarded by the United Nations, the European Union, the Council, European Town Planners, Colleges of Architects and Business Associations, among them, the prestigious "Rey Jaime I" award, granted by H.M. the King of Spain, and on three occasions, the European Urbanism Award for his work in Euskal Hiria and the design of the Eco-city of Sarriguren, in Navarra. In 2017, he was awarded the "Public Service Star Award" by the President of Singapore. He is a member of the jury of the "Lee Kuan Yew World Cities Award" and currently Chairman of the jury of the "European Urbanism Awards".

For approximately fifteen years he has been an advisor to the Government of Singapore, as well as to several cities around the world, such as: Yokohama, Mexico City, Bilbao, Buenos Aires, Kuala Lumpur, Sao Paulo, Casablanca, Moscow and Medellin.

Alfonso Vegara is the Founder and Honorary President of Fundación Metrópoli, an international center of excellence dedicated to research, design and innovation in cities around the world. Fundación Metrópoli has developed a partnership with Microsoft to work in different cities around the world at the intersection between technology and territory. In 2016 he finished the direction of the project "Diamante Caribe y Santanderes de Colombia" which has been awarded as the most innovative idea at the 2015 Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, and also with the prestigious award "2017 Global Award for Excellence" by The International Association of City Planners ISOCARP.

Alfonso Vegara's work focus is to promote the strategic value of cities and their future opportunities in a complex and interrelated world. His ideas, philosophy and city projects are presented in his books "Territorios Inteligentes" and recently "Supercities. The Intelligence of the Territory". The latter publication received the "Gerd Albers Award" as the best book of 2016 awarded by the International Association of City Planners.