 Welcome to Hamburg and welcome to this beautiful place. Actually, it's one of the best places in town. We have to open this conference to open the City Science Summit 2019 and it's such a great honour for our city to host the third City Science Summit after Andorra and Shanghai. And of course, I don't see you all, but I heard that around about 400, 500 people here already and the list of participants of course is long international and top level and I can't say to all of you individually hello, but like this, welcome so much to Hamburg and I'm very much looking forward to sharing some time with you here at Hamburg's really popular landmark, the Elbphilharmonie. You're all members of the City Science Network, you're network partners from Boston, from Quito, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Andorra, Helsinki, Cairo, Dubai, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing. Wow, that sounds really impressive and amazing and you're all established experts as high level CEOs and academics of all career stages, mayors from various cities around the globe have registered what a diverse and international group and that really makes us proud and once again a very, very warm welcome because you all share a passion, we also have the passion for the future of our cities and today and tomorrow you will have the chance to focus on up-to-date and urgent questions, you will have the opportunity to discuss new approaches, develop new innovative ideas, how urban spaces and international metropolis can develop in the future and I'm very curious to hear and learn more from your expertise as our city here in Hamburg is changing at a rapid pace actually, just now we are realizing and we are actually in this area, Europe's biggest urban development project, the Hafen City around this beautiful concert hall and other urban projects such as the Science City, not City Science but Science City, Barenfeld which is a district of Hamburg in the western part, they are already in the queue and more are still to come so actually we look at science and I as the minister, we look at science from many different perspectives but also from the perspective of urban development and urban build and what contribution science actually can do and so we are kind of excited to have the first time in Hamburg's history a new quarter, a new district that has been triggered and motivated and pushed by science and by research and by technology transfer and that is really, really exciting for us so therefore it is a great honor for our city to host such a visionary summit and of course it's a pleasure to have you all here and before I continue, I would like to give a tremendous thank you to Geza Tzema and her team of the City Science Lab, I spoke to some of them outside and actually can to some of your colleagues, recognize them from last year I think you did a fantastic job setting up this conference it is such a promising program and I think you will have like fun filled days of discussions, talks, high profile keynote speaks, interactive workshops and other sessions and of course tomorrow the general public is invited too so I would really, really like to give a hand to Geza for bringing this summit to Hamburg and for making this meeting possible I think this is spectacular, thank you so much and I think we are all aware and I just mentioned it that the times for global politics are currently very challenging I would even dare to say that the times are extremely challenging and I think we have to look what is happening in the cities because actually today more than 50% of the population lives in cities and it is more to come and I think this is the place where the smart ideas and solutions of tomorrow will happen to transfer them to the country, countryside and of course to all fields of political swear and so it is so fascinating for us to see what is possible when I take a look at the city science lab here in Hamburg and we met you last year in Boston and it was such a fascinating experience to see what kind of different fields we actually can use the mechanisms of the city science lab to find solutions for today and for tomorrow and what we did here in Hamburg three or four years ago when we had the huge wave of refugees coming to Europe, to Germany and in particular to the cities with the help of the city science lab here at the Hafen City University which was introduced after we signed the cooperation contract with you with the MIT in Boston was to invite people, people of Hamburg to really discuss the mega-challenge of housing for refugees and people realized, oh I can't just say welcome to everybody and at the same time say it's good to have them but not anywhere around my place so people from all walks of life were invited to discuss the issue of refugee housing and they realized that there is no black and white answer but they realized there is something in between and that is political debate and political discussion and find a consensus and to compromise and this all helps besides the technical aspect to understand how society works and I think that is a big, big contribution to democracy and what we see at the MIT and what we see here at the Hafen City University really paves the way for a new form of understanding of participation, of people's participation and we actually want to push that to an even higher level I don't know whether there are already representatives here from the United Nations and from our foreign ministry but this afternoon I think it is we will sign a contract or a letter of intent with the United Nations Technology and Innovation Lab known as UNTIL that we have a new form of cooperation for participation processes and finding solutions for cities and then of course makes us and me very proud that we will have that in Hamburg maybe one last remark sometime ago Hamburg was mainly a port and trade city a very proud and a very rich port and trade city I think Hamburg has developed tremendously over the past years because it is currently transforming into a vibrating science and innovation metropolis also with the help of our universities and in particular with the help of the Hafen City University because what has developed here is not ideas and visions for urban belt and architecture and the way cities look like in the future but what I just said with the City Science Lab we have new forms of participation of integrating people, of addressing even people they know they have a problem with a certain thing so we actually include everybody so we have a good contribution to democracy and a good participation process with this interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach of the Hafen City where science and basic research is being transformed into ideas that help societies to grow and I want to say thank you for that because that helps to create acceptance for science and research and in times of fake news this is exactly the answer to it so thank you so much to all our universities here in Hamburg and around the world and in particular once again to the Hafen City University the motto I think it's quite a daring motto because I'm away here I thought what is cities without politicians and politics so maybe next time you can do without representatives from the city and you find your own solutions but I think it's always a good idea not to keep in touch but really to exchange and to argue and to find the best solutions but why not think to be innovative and to try out completely new things mobility without cars, economies without currencies why not govern our future cities without bureaucrats cities without I think that is a cool motto and I'm very interested to hear and to find out what kind of solutions you come up with if you come up with solutions sometimes things stay open so ladies and gentlemen and dear all once again a very warm welcome to you here in Hamburg and I hope you will have an inspiring conference you will meet as many new people as possible because every time you meet new people new ideas will be generated and I hope you enjoy your time here thank you so much