Collecting, processing, storing, and making large data sets actionable is a proven business model in the software development industry, but what if you applied the same technology for city services and infrastructure? In this episode, we talk to John Edgar, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer for Stae.co, a data platform for civil engineering that brings valuable data capabilities to cities and local governments.

John told us the origins for how he came to think about applying the elements of a data platform to city and local government models. We talk about some of the difficulties in bringing a relatively high tech initiative to institutions that are often old and very slow moving. But as John points out, the payoff for cities that do take advantage of a data platform and the sensor networks that fuel it is big. The same idea behind what makes data valuable for tech companies can work for city municipalities, but it does take some ownership and change. John also talks to us about the ideas behind an open source city, cities that are leading the model for this change, and the roadmap for Stae.co.