On Wednesday, the main stage witnessed the brilliance of Geoffrey West, the world-renowned theoretical physicist, here to talk about some key points addressed in his bestseller, Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies.

He spoke about the harms in rapid expansion of cities against the non-linear expansion of urban growth components. “We live in an exponentially expanding socio-economic universe”, he said, while also stressing on the fact that the fate of our planet is completely bound by the fate of our cities.

He likens the superlinear and unequal urban growth to a group of international leaders convening in 1700s, to build industrial revolution around a rule set, but simply forgetting it later. Although, he is confident of the human ability to innovate a solution for cities and general urbanisation.

What’s more, a few lucky ones also had the chance to get their copies of his book signed!