The Smart Community Podcast

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great conversation with John Carr. John is a project manager with ARTC currently delivering the Inland Rail project, specifically the North Star to Border segment which is a once in a generation cross border civil infrastructure project comprising of brownfield, greenfield and major floodplain crossings.

John starts by telling us about his background as a civil engineer, his passion for managing projects that solve problems and give him fulfilment including some examples of those projects before telling us what a Smart Community is to him. We then dive into Inland Rail and John gives us an overview of the project, some of the challenges he has faced and gives us examples of how some of the regional communities have begun to plan for and invest in Inland Rail. We then discuss what intermodal terminals are, their purpose and the desire that Inland Rail will increase the efficiency of freight through these types of terminals.

John then shares with us some examples of the digital models and data collection methods being used to deliver the project and their advantages, before discussing how community and stakeholder engagement has been navigated throughout the project and the advantages of the empirical to analytical data collection loop to show the community relatable data. We finish our chat discussing more about the emerging trend of the empirical to analytical data collection loop, how important this skill set is to teach to young emerging engineers and the emergence of a more personable engineer. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode, as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with John via LinkedIn

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have such a great conversation with Felicity Furey, an engineer and award-winning entrepreneur who now works with high-performing teams to give leaders the skills they need to ignite new possibilities in business, education and STEM. Felicity starts by telling us about her background and how she came to be a civil engineer, as well as her passion for leadership, creativity, business engineering and women in STEM and how these led her into the education space. Felicity then shares with us what a Smart Community is to her and we discuss how important creativity and diverse skills are so important in the engineering industry.

She then tells us all about her three businesses; Power of Engineering, Maths in Real Life and WeAspire, and the amazing work they are doing with students and future leaders to inspire through education, before we discuss how STEM fits into the Smart Communities space. We then discuss the link between engineering and leadership and the importance of good communication in engineering to effectively communicate ideas to the people you want to sell them to.

We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of more complex problems communities are now facing, how the community is now involved in the solutions and decision making processes as well as the need to be able to solve these problems ahead of time. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode, as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Felicity via LinkedIn

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of The Smart Community Podcast, we welcome back Scott Shepard who you may remember from Episode 139 in 2019. Scott is an urban planner with Iomob - The Internet of Mobility currently based in Lisbon, Portugal and ready to talk about all things mobility. Scott first tells us about his passion for cities, places and people and how these link together with mobility and transport. As Scott is based in Portugal, he discusses the contrast and comparison in urban planning between the US and Europe, and how he looks for best practices for sustainable urbanism this way, we then go back to micromobility in 2019 and where it was at the last time Scott and I spoke.

We then talk about digital communication and digital trust and how these have shifted, as well as the focus now on human centric action and neighbourhood focused mobility as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We talk more about the pandemic and the impacts it has had on our urban and digital environments and how some of the temporary emergency based interventions can be implemented into society long term. Scott then talks about intermodality and the need to think beyond the silos of individual modality, before we discuss how public needs are changing, and in terms of transport how their behaviour can be influenced for better sustainable mobility outcomes.

We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of technologies such as electric vehicles, hyperloops, air shuttles, air taxis and personal autonomy and whether these are sustainable, scalable and the real future of mobility. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode, as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Scott via LinkedIn or Twitter

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great conversation with Edwina Griffin, founder of AtOne, which is an immersive meditation experience using the AtOne app and virtual reality headset. Edwina tells us about her background in the health and wellness space, her passion for a healthy work culture and what a Smart Community is to her. Edwina then shares with us how her wellness journey inspired her to get into the tech space, before telling us all about her company AtOne and what is involved when using the products.

We then chat about Edwina's transition into the tech space to develop her company, how important it was during this time to surround herself with the right people, some of the lessons learned in the early stages of building her company and the amazing support she received from the tech community to develop a successful product and business. Edwina then dives a bit deeper into the AtOne product and explains how individuals and companies can benefit from the products before discussing the underutilisation of smell, and how it can trigger relaxation and meditation memory.

We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of artificial intelligence and machine learning and the potentials of what can be created in Smart Communities. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Edwina via LinkedIn or Email [email protected]

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends. I'm back with another bonus episode of the Smart Community Podcast sharing various guests answers to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from these guests:

•Katie Patrick from Episode 234

•Ned Staebler from Episode 236

•Stefaan Verhulst from Episode 235

•And finally Marius Sylvestersen from Episode 233

Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around digital tools and technologies, data and how data can improve decision making. It is becoming more and more important to start showing our communities real time data to allow them to make better informed decisions. Digital tools and new technologies play a large role in this, firstly to disseminate collected data to the community and secondly, allowing for better public engagement, both contributing to better decision making. Without knowledge and good quality data, people do not have reason to take action, make better decisions or change their behaviour for the better.

As Stefaan Verhulst says, "Smart Communities will realise that it's not about the city infrastructure, but it's really about the kinds of decisions that can be improved. So I think Smart Communities will have to become Smart decision environments."

As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great conversation with Ned Staebler, the President and CEO of TechTown, a Detroit based entrepreneur hub helping startups and local businesses launch and grow. Ned tells us a bit about his background, his passion for inclusive economic growth in the City of Detroit, before sharing with us what a Smart Community is to him and how his love for a sense of community led him into the Smart Communities space.

Ned then tells us about TechTown, how they started and some examples of the businesses they have helped, before discussing the history of Detroit and how its communities have evolved and changed over time. We then discuss the importance of the end user and public engagement when planning and making decisions for communities, as well as the need for diverse skill sets to then build solutions for those communities. We then discuss people's own skill sets and how important it is to recognise our own strengths and weaknesses to be successful in business.

We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of telemedicine and teleconferencing and how these can give much better access to healthcare in communities. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Ned via the TechTown Detroit Website - https://techtowndetroit.org/

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a very interesting conversation with Stefaan Verhulst, co-founder of The GovLab (The Governance Lab) whose mission is to transform the way people make decisions through new technologies and science. We begin by Stefaan telling us about his background in communications and Information Technology, his passion for making sense of the world through storytelling and narratives and how these can frame reality and ultimately affect decision making.

Stefaan then tells us how he co-founded The GovLab and shares a bit about the work they do before sharing with us what a Smart Community is to him. We talk more about how The GovLab connects in with Smart Communities and some of the challenges Stefaan has faced in the data collaboration world. We then discuss how social media affects the way people make decisions and how Artificial Intelligence can compliment Collective Intelligence.

We discuss the emerging trends of a broader demand for meaningful public engagement, the adoption of public entrepreneurship and better data collaboration. We finish our chat discussing the importance of understanding the right questions to ask when analysing data. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Stefaan via LinkedIn or Twitter or via The GovLab website

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a fascinating conversation with Katie Patrick, an environmental engineer, software designer, author and co-founder of the two environmental database startups Energy Lollipop and Urban Canopy. We begin our conversation by Katie telling us her background as an environmental engineer, how she transitioned to running her own publishing company to now her own startups. Katie then shares with us what a Smart Community is to her and her passion for environmental data. We then talk more about environmental data and how it can help drive change in human behaviour before Katie talks about her interest in behavioural psychology. Katie then shares with us her two startups and the work they are involved in and we talk about her transition from a more conventional style of work to the startup space, before discussing personality types and the value different personalities can bring to an organisation. We talk about the basis of Katie's book "How To Save The World'' and how important it was for Katie to deliver her complex messages in the book in a readable way to her audience. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of granular data and data-to-data comparisons. As always we hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Katie via LinkedIn Twitter or Instagram

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the smart community podcast I have a great conversation with Marius Sylvestersen, the Smart City Program Director for the City of Copenhagen in the Solutions Lab.

We begin by Marius sharing with us his background in sustainability, how he got into the Smart Communities space, his passion for interlinking technology and nature as well as building public and private partnerships and Marius tells us what a Smart Community is to him.

We then discuss how the use of digital technologies helps engage better with the community to accelerate local democracy before Marius shares with us some of the sustainability and green transition projects he is currently working on with the City of Copenhagen.

We finish our chat with Marius sharing some examples of how the City of Copenhagen uses technology to measure carbon neutrality and how they are working towards better mobility in the city. Marius talks about how important it is to listen to the community and understand their language to plan smart communities and we discuss the emerging trends of 'ethical technology' and the further use of digital tools for citizen engagement to better serve communities. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community

Connect with Marius via LinkedIn or Twitter

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends. I'm back with another bonus episode of the Smart Community Podcast sharing various guests answers to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from these guests:

•Beate Kubitz from Episode 218

•Ashleigh Wilson from Episode 223

•Lea Hemetsberger from Episode 226

•Marcus Foth from Episode 230

•Jo Palmer from Episode 228

•Cristina Savian from Episode 229

•And finally Katya Petrikevich from Episode 231

Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around remote work, connectivity, knowledge sharing and accessibility of data for communities and individuals.

The impacts of COVID19 are becoming more apparent, we will see more remote work in communities and a shift in the way people can and want to access information and data, particularly in regional and rural areas. Better knowledge sharing and data bases are key to building better connected and smarter communities.

COVID19 has presented a lot of challenges, but also a lot of opportunities to explore how we currently connect and how we can connect and use data better to benefit communities.

As Jo Palmer says, "We are in such an opportune time, and that transfer of information is so much easier and I think that's exciting for Smart Communities, for all communities, for all individuals regardless of where you are."

As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community