What is City of Knowledge?

What is City of Knowledge?

Just a few minutes from Panama’s city center and across from the Panama Canal, the 120 hectares and over 200 buildings of the former Clayton military base have been transformed into the City of Knowledge. Here, entrepreneurs, scientists, thinkers, artists, community leaders, as well as experts from the government, NGOs, and international organizations work together to develop initiatives that trigger social change.

An innovative community

City of Knowledge is an innovative community that imagines, researches, learns, teaches, experiments, invents, creates and inspires; proving that a different Panama and a different world are possible. A private, non-profit Panamanian organization responsible for leading this project: The City of Knowledge Foundation.

History

In 1993, a group of Panamanian businessmen came up with the idea of creating a “Socratic forum,” using the facilities of the Reverted Areas (the former Canal Zone), a project that a year later received the support of the Panamanian Government. The City of Knowledge Foundation was established in July of 1995 as a way to develop this initiative. Through Decree Law Nº 6 of 1998, the State arranged the transfer of 120 hectares of the former Fort Clayton to the City of Knowledge Foundation. The formal transfer of the base to Panama took place on 30 November 1999. The compound was handed over to the National Government and on the same day of the handover ceremony the government passed on to the Foundation the land and facilities that now make up City of Knowledge. Two days later, on 2 December 1999, the eleven members of the project’s founding team arrived on the site.