Beijing, China, 8 March — On International Women’s Day, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in China and the Future Affairs Administration convened “My 2060: Making a Sustainable Future Happen” at the UN Compound in Beijing, bringing together stakeholders from science, technology, art and sustainable development to explore what inclusive and resilient urban futures could look like by 2060.  

Building on UNDP China’s “My Sustainable City” campaign launched on World Cities Day 2025, the initiative connected science fiction and AI-enabled visualisation to make long-term urban possibilities tangible, relatable and open to debate. It reflects a core development insight: future pathways do not “arrive” by default—they are designed, and their quality depends on whose voices and lived experiences shape them, including those too often under-represented in future-making. 

“When combined with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, imagination becomes even more powerful: it gives form to abstract ideas and opens up new ways for people to engage with sustainability,” said James George, UNDP China Resident Representative ad interim in his opening remarks.  

"Looking toward the 2030 deadline to achieve the SDGs, and beyond, to 2060, the question before us is not whether technology will shape our cities—it will. The real question is how it will shape them, and for whom,” he added.

The campaign invited 12 science fiction writers from various countries to contribute short stories envisioning how cities may look and function in 2060. These scenarios were then interpreted by AI creators and translated into visual works. 

At the event, participants viewed an on-site screening of “The Future is NOT Recyclable,” an AI-generated film created from the campaign scenarios. The film portrayed a city in 2060 where natural ecosystems, technological advancement and human-centred values are deeply interwoven—from buildings wrapped in vegetation to shared spaces designed to offer dignity and opportunity to people of different ages, abilities and backgrounds. 

The screening was followed by a series of TED-style talks featuring women leaders from architecture, spaceflight, art and engineering, showing how imagination can surface practical choices and ethical questions around urban design, technology, inclusion and sustainability—and, ultimately, the kind of “good life” and a future people want to live in. 

The event concluded with an all-women panel that connected the questions raised by the science fiction stories and visualisations to present-day development challenges and risks, underscoring that inclusive futures require inclusive authorship—and that decisions about technology, urban systems and our collective future must be guided by diverse perspectives.