SMART CITIES NYC ‘17 | May 3 - 6 | Brooklyn Navy Yard, 63 Flushing Ave., Brooklyn, NY
Recently, Digital.NYC’s editor, Marcos Dinnerstein, spoke with the team at Smart Cities NYC ’17 to learn about the coming event that will bring together some of the most prominent experts on urban planning, civic tech, and technology. Here’s what we learned:
Digital.NYC: How did this event come to be created? How do you define a ’smart city’?
We at Global Futures Group have been in the smart cities space for years now. Our CEO Jerry Hultin has a long history in the space globally and has led us to work with cities, governments, and companies on smart cities projects and programs. Through these experiences we have had the privilege of participating in similar events throughout the US and the world and realized that NYC has a great smart city story to tell in addition to being a great location for domestic and global folks to discuss best practice in the space. We also want to make sure that the impact of technology on society, which often gets lost, is an important part of the story. We want to emphasize the human element through the people, projects, and impacts of new technologies in cities. Since we began the process of creating the show nearly two years ago, we have been joined by and teamed up with a lot of great partners to explore what's happening in foundational sectors to smart cities development, from mobility and transportation, to health, to infrastructure, to energy, to finance. To be a smart city you must not only leverage data and technology, but programs and civic engagement to help make citizens lives better and increase economic development. Our lead sponsor Microsoft has been phenomenal in helping us shape the conversation and bring in pivotal support. We want to ensure that the conversation hits not only the broad strokes and themes within the market, but also gets into some deeper dives into subjects like disabilities, civic engagement, transportation, and health.
Digital.NYC: What will the conference being addressing?
We'll be discussing a variety of topics ranging from infrastructure, to autonomous vehicles, to urban food systems and the latest smart city innovations What we would like to do at the event is focus on the people, projects, future, and impacts of technology on society and avoid discussing only widgets. But rather, we will refocus the conversation around the effects of new tech on our everyday lives, jobs, food, and most importantly, how we mobilize. This is where we have really leveraged our partnership with Deloitte’s Future of Mobility practice. In addition to thought leadership on stage we are hosting over twenty workshops offering a deeper dive into topics with partners such as NYU, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Numa, C40, Cities for Life, Civic Hall, The International Trade Administration, Capalino and Company, and many more. We've been really fortunate to have some truly innovative and forward-thinking institutions step up and support us. We're really looking forward to the event.
Digital.NYC: How did you select the roster of speakers?
This is where the hard work of our team with partners and sponsors really comes out. Additionally, we hosted monthly town halls for New Yorkers the past year where many of the themes and speakers came from. The roster is a star studded showcase of some of the amazing people, ideas, and projects that we're working to improve cities globally.
Digital.NYC: Is there a particular panel or speaker you are most excited about?
We're are excited about all of our speakers, and it's hard not to be. We've have industry icons, government leaders, and academic figureheads, as well as movers and shakers who are hustling to make a name for themselves.
Digital.NYC: Is there a way non-attendees can follow this event? Perhaps via living streaming or social media?
We aren't live streaming the event this year, but will be hosting it online upon completion. Our social media rockstars and partners will be live tweeting throughout the 4 days of the show, as well as on Instagram and Facebook. We want to foster a community and one of the easiest ways we can do that is to make sure we're providing content and access up to, during, and after the event. So make sure to look us up at Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to join the Smart Cities NYC community.
Smart Cities NYC '17 (Use code: SMARTCNYC for 10% off)
Read Complete Article