Katowice is where your childhood dreams of living in space, like the Jetsons family, can come true. While there are no flying taxis, the city has its own ‘flying saucer’, non-pneumatic (yet!) glass elevators, and the Cosmos Cinema (Kino Kosmos). At night, the neon-lit streets are full of little alien-like figures called Beboks. Fans of the space age and modernism will never tire of exploring the city’s out-of-this-world architectural gems. I visited Katowice for the European Science Open Forum 2024, held at the International Conference Centre (which sits on an old mining waste dump site!). It was my first time in the city, and during the day, I soaked up presentations about transformation, innovation,…