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Vilnius experience interested Albanian cities
Vilnius ROCK project team shared their best practices with Albanian cities
On 16-17 July, Vilnius City Municipality representatives, implementing the ROCK project in the Lithuanian capital, shared their best practices with guests from Albanian cities. During the visit, representatives of Albania were presented with the most innovative projects of the capital city, the principles of city planning and the plans for the future. The guests visited Vilnius Old Town Renewal Agency and were introduced to the ongoing Handicraft Program. Visiting the public company Go Vilnius, they learned in what ways the city of Vilnius promotes tourism, attracts foreign investment and creates the city’s branding. The guests also visited the start-up park Vilnius Tech Park.
For two days, a team consisting of 10 multidisciplinary experts from various Albanian cities were gaining knowledge about the experiences of Vilnius in different areas. Most of all they were interested in the principles and rules of city planning, the management of currently ongoing projects, the empowerment of the Old Town buildings, the tourism promotion and the role of innovation in the improvement of services and citizens’ quality of life.
“We aim to make the technologies that we create an integral part of life, helping and facilitating everyday life rather than becoming a sophisticated tool. Another important goal is to make innovative solutions applicable and usable here and now, not planned to be used some time in the future and not pushed to the past. I have no doubt that the research carried out within the framework of the Horizon 2020 ROCK project will help us to direct the urban planning for the better, ” said Dalia Bardauskienė, Advisor to the Mayor of Vilnius City, presenting one of the most interesting projects in the capital city.
Visiting Go Vilnius, Vilnius Tech Park and Old Town Renewal Agency, Albanians were amazed to see how much Vilnius had advanced in innovation and how much it had been investing in beautifying the environment, adapting the Old Town to the needs of the citizens, providing public spaces and developing a range of services for tourists and locals.
According to the leaders of the Albanian-American Development Fund, Vilnius is a very green, clean, lively and enterprising city, where people do not shy away from smiling and sharing not only good practice but also good mood. The leaders’ great desire is to learn from the projects organised in Vilnius City Municipality, to plan the empowerment of the Old Town buildings so that they house tech parks, city laboratories and galleries to manage public spaces and so on.
The capital city projects were presented to guests by:
Dalia Bardauskienė, Advisor to the Mayor and ROCK project manager
Mindaugas Pakalnis, Chief Architect of Vilnius City
Rūta Matonienė, Senior Advisor at the City Development Department
Dalius Kazlauskas, Advisor at the E-City Department
