Jameel Center Talks explores urban revival and climate change with leading practitioners

CAIRO, EGYPT – 12 January 2026 | 'Reclaiming the city', the inaugural session of Jameel Center Talks, brought together a diverse group of urban practitioners who are actively reshaping the built environment in Egypt and beyond, Community Jameel announced today.

Featuring student innovators and award-winning architects, the event focused on how design can serve as a powerful tool for revival, preservation and climate resilience.

Featured speakers and projects

• Urban Purifiers: This all-female student team from Capital University (formerly Helwan University) in Egypt recently won the 2025 Jameel C40 Students Reinventing Cities competition.
  
  They presented WASL, their winning project, which reimagines the Southern Gate neighbourhood of Amman, Jordan, as a living system and integrates eco-pedestrian networks and green infrastructure to combat pressing issues like water scarcity and heat.

• Kareem Ibrahim: Co-founder of Takween Integrated Community Development, Kareem won the prestigious 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the decade-long Revitalisation of historic Esna project.
  
  Successfully transforming a rural heritage site in Egypt into a thriving model for sustainable tourism and community empowerment, the project also involved alumni of the Jameel House of Traditional Arts in Cairo.
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• Omar Nagati: Renowned architect and founder of Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER), Omar shared insights from CLUSTER projects, including Cairo Downtown Passageways and the Pergola Community Arts Space.
  
  Supported by Art Jameel and the British Council and the recipient of an honourable mention at 2025 Cairo Design Week, Pergola serves as a "beating heart" for the Agouza community, constructed from recycled Nile plastic waste and designed as an act of resistance against the shrinking of public space.

Next-generation innovators take the lead

The 2025 Jameel C40 Students Reinventing Cities competition was open to young innovators to design a sustainable, inclusive and climate-responsive urban masterplan for the Southern Gate area of Amman, Jordan.

The challenge was presented by the Jameel C40 Urban Planning Climate Labs, a collaboration between Community Jameel and C40 Cities to support the integration of climate action in urban planning in Chennai, India, and Amman.

Selected from more than 170 students in 31 teams from universities in Egypt, Italy and Jordan, the nine-person, Urban Purifiers team approached the competition as a chance to tackle real urban challenges while building their skills as future architects and designers.

The Urban Purifiers team members are: Sama Abdelghany, Merna Amin, Clara Ishak, Sara Osman, Jolie Olwy, Mariam Ezzat, Donia Mostafa, Merna Gamal and Catrin Ishak.

Nathaniel Daudrich, head of product at Community Jameel, said: "We are delighted to be celebrating the Urban Purifiers team that won the 2025 Jameel C40 Students Reinventing Cities competition.

"In marking their achievement, this inaugural session of Jameel Center Talks brings together leading practitioners in architecture and urban design from across Egypt on the topic of city planning in the face of climate change."

A multi-disciplinary platform for global voices

Today's event was the first session of Jameel Center Talks, a programme of events that showcases the work of scientists, technologists, humanitarians and artists from around the Community Jameel network. 

The programme is anchored at the Jameel Center, the modernist building in Downtown Cairo designed by Palestinian architect Suhayl Bathish and supported by a gift from the Jameel family.

Opened in 1989 to house the American University in Cairo’s department of management studies until the AUC moved to New Cairo, the Jameel Center is today part of the GrEEK Campus, Cairo’s first technology and innovation park established in 2013.