In July, UPS's branch campus in Quito welcomed two prominent academics on urbanism and geography: David Harvey and Miguel Robles Durán, who were the speakers during the talks titled:  "Communal and ancestral Territories" and "People and intercultural disputes in the city".

The objective of this meeting and the talks was to bring the academic community and social leaders closer to issues related to urban problems, whose critical perspectives are necessary and urgent in order to rethink the present and future of cities and the processes of territorial organization. It was about women's rights to the city, the behavior of global capital, gentrification and the ecological, economic and political impacts caused by the eviction of communities by urban expansion.

Harvey is a British geographer and social theorist, professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the Miliband Fellow of the London School of Economics. Robles Durán is an urban planner and Director of Urban Ecologies at Parsons School of Design in New York.

The talks were organized by the Local Sustainable Development undergraduate program; the State and Development Research Group (GIEDE), communities and intercultural disputes in the city, with the support of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Universidad Central del Ecuador (UCE) and the Colectivo de Geografía Crítica del Ecuador. 

It was attended by delegates from indigenous organizations, irrigation boards, local organizations, autonomous and cantonal governments. The forum was attended by representatives of the Kayambi community, Afro Ancestral community and the municipality. Additionally, the conversation held at the "El Girón" campus was attended by Pablo Ortiz, Ph.D, director of the Local Sustainable Development undergraduate program, Freddy Simbaña of Intercultural Bilingual Education; Daniela Ochoa, of Applied Anthropology; María Fernanda Solórzano of Local Management and Rafael Polo, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of UCE.

Ortiz said that these meetings are an opportunity to approach key issues that are discussed worldwide. "Thanks to these talks we are aware of the problems in society; we cannot ignore that it is the responsibility of academia to respond to urban problems," he said.