Charter Cities Institute

Our History Nobel Laureate Paul Romer gave his famous TED talk in 2009 which he introduced the concept of charter cities to the world. Since then, organizations across every continent have come together in a race to build the world’s first successful charter cities. The Charter Cities Institute started with an insight: numerous stakeholders were interested in charter cities and approaching the idea from different angles, but there was little co-ordination or communication between them. ‍ Individuals and organizations working in real estate, government, finance, and international development were independently discovering the potential of new cities to chart new developmental courses in countries across the world. Simultaneously, Mark Lutter, founder of the Charter Cities Institute, realized there was an opportunity for a new organization to play a coordinating role between each of these disparate groups. The goal was simple: to bring each stakeholder to the table and in doing so, accelerate the development of charter cities. ‍ Founded in 2017, the Charter Cities Institute stands the focal point for all parts of the charter cities ecosystem. Our efforts have since expanded to include technical assistance to new city projects to design and implement their governance systems, research on governance and institutions, and our annual Charter Cities conference. Since our founding, our team and network has scaled significantly. Tamara Winter, our Communications Lead, was hired in October 2018, and since the beginning of 2019 the team has grown to include Ramil Maharramov, Director of Partnerships, Kurtis Lockhart, Economics Researcher, and Jeffrey Mason, Research Associate.