The Smart Community Podcast

This is a quick episode to introduce our ASCA August special here on the Smart Community Podcast.

What is ASCA?

ASCA is the Australia Smart Communities Association of which Zoe is a volunteer board member.

In August, all episodes of the Smart Community Podcast will be brought to you by the Australian Smart Communities Association with a focus on the needs of ASCA members. So we're bringing you conversations, stories and learnings from local government agencies around the world, as well as from the board members.

Connect with ASCA at www.australiansmartcommunities.org.au

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great conversation with Aditi Padhi, a Senior Associate in Planning and Smart City Initiative at infrastructure and urban development company, Surbana Jurong. Aditi tells us about her background in business and architecture, and her passion for Smart Community solutions, as well as why the concept is so important to her personally. She tells us how she sees India embracing Smart City initiatives, and we also talk in depth about two projects she's worked on. We discuss how cities must carefully manage their resources, and the very real need to educate both citizens and local government administration and other professionals to be able to fully engage in and maintain Smart initiatives. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of disaster management and multi-use facilities within cities. As always I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it.

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

Connect with Aditi at her website http://aditipadhi.com/ or via LinkedIn

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a fascinating conversation with Aileen Gemma Smith the CEO at Vizalytics Technology Incorporated. Aileen Gemma tells us a bit about her very varied background from English Literature to Allied Health to data analytics, and how she became interested in the Smart City and Community space. We discuss why it's so important to understand the needs of all users so we can better deliver services to our community, and how data can help do us do this. Aileen Gemma also tells us how she sees Australia embracing Smart Concepts and some of the projects she's working on right now, including with Transport NSW. We then discuss the power of having executive buy in and support to empower and enable teams to do things differently, and she uses the term 'fluency' to define the different and varied expertise and experiences we all have, and why we really need to be honouring and respecting our different expertise, experiences and fluencies when it comes time to integrate across disciplines. Aileen Gemma and I then have a fantastic chat about changing the narratives for emerging women leaders in tech and bringing more diversity to our conversations so we can foster inclusivity. Finally, we finish our conversation discussing the lack of awareness about how much context matters when it comes to AI and machine learning, and the need for far more tech and data literacy across the board. As always, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it.

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

Connect with Aileen via LinkedIn or on Twitter @aileengemma

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I had a great conversation on location in Mexico City with architect and city planner Pablo Lazo. I recorded this while I was away on my Churchill Fellowship visit to Mexico in March and I really enjoyed this conversation. If you want to hear my reflections on my visit to Mexico City, as well as the other places I visited while I was away, you should subscribe to my exclusive podcast about my Churchill Fellowship. It's exclusively for supporters on Pozible, so head to Pozible.com today, search for My Smart Community, and hit support. There's several episodes there already for you to get stuck into and hear about the various people, places and platforms I investigated as part of her Churchill Fellowship.

In this episode, Pablo and I discuss his passion for cities and his interest in Smart Mobility. We really focus in on Mexico City and the opportunities and challenges the city is facing in terms of transport, urban sprawl, population and employment opportunities. We talk about the relationship between place, mobility and public health and how we can use data to better understand this relationship and provide better solutions for our communities. Pablo and I also discuss Smart Streets, and how we need to be proactive about reducing conflict between different users on our roads, plus the emerging trends of both autonomous vehicles and walkability. As always I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it.

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

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I had a brilliant conversation with Sofie Pringle, a designer with a passion for creating cities and urban places that increase people's happiness and mental well-being. She is currently completing a doctorate in urban planning and design at Queensland University of Technology, focusing on the positive and negative effects that design and planning features have on user happiness and well-being. In this episode Sofie tells us about her PhD and what sparked her interest in this space, as well as why she believes there is a gap in the Smart Community conversation around the concept of happiness in the city. We also discuss sustainable urbanisation and the compact city fallacy, and why nurturing our Smart Regional Hubs is so crucial. We finish the chat discussing the emerging trend of the neuroscience research into the impact urban environments have on human brains, and how we're just not talking about that enough. As always, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it.

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

Connect with Sofie via LinkedIn or Twitter @sofie_pringle

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

Zoe is back behind the mic after her Churchill Fellowship world tour so you'll start hearing her voice again at the start of the regular podcast episodes. In this episode we're doing things a little differently. Throughout this year, Zoe has asked each guests an extra question which was edited out of the regular interview: "Where to next for Smart Cities and Communities?" In this episode you are going to hear an amalgamation of a few of the answers from this year's guests.

The loose theme of this episode is around the need for decision making and action on climate change: you'll hear from Don McLean from episode 102, Mark Thomas from episode 111, Lisa McLean from episode 105, Ricardo Van Leunen from episode104 And finally Chunga Cha from episode 110.

All the guests agree that we need some urgent action and we need to think not just about what's happening now, but more about the long term. We need to make decisions now that may not benefit people now, but will be beneficial in the long term. 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 me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, we hear part 2 of Zoe's interview with Cornelia Levy-Bencheton and Mike Barlow. In Part 2, which is the previous episode, Zoe and Mike and Cornelia discussed the power of Smart Communities to engage citizens which can lead to a more effective and empowered democracy. They also shared how they see the US embracing the Smart City space and gave some great examples of some Smart concepts being implemented there. If you haven't yet listened to Part 1 of this interview, go and do that before listening to this episode. In Part 2, Cornelia and Mike tell us about their book, "Smart Cities, Smart Futures: Showcasing Tomorrow." And about some of the projects that they're working on right now. They cover the future of work and the opportunities and challenges that come from the range of generations in the work force right now. Zoe, Mike and Cornelia also discuss blockchain and the concept of data as labour, and why Smart Cities and Smart Communities need to be part of Smart Regions in order for them to be good for Smart People that live there.

So we pick up Part 2 of this conversation where the previous episode left off, talking about the need for transparency and citizen engagement in Smart Cities to avoid backlash from the community. 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 Cornelia on LinkedIn or on Twitter @bencheton

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn or on Twitter @mike7pilot

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, Zoe has a fascinating and really great conversation with Cornelia Levy-Bencheton and Mike Barlow, the authors of the book "Smart Cities, Smart Futures: Showcasing Tomorrow." Cornelia and Mike tell us about their backgrounds and how they became so passionate about the Smart City and Smart Community space. They share with us their desire to educate and inspire people about these concepts so that we can collectively be more engaged citizens, have a more effective and empowered democracy, and solve problems both big and small in our communities, cities, countries and the world.

Cornelia and Mike share examples of Smart Concepts being used in real places, why being engaged citizens is so important, and what they see as the six facets of a Smart City. This was a longer interview that usual, so we've split the conversation into two parts. You will hear Part 1 today and stay tuned for part 2. 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 Cornelia on LinkedIn or on Twitter @bencheton

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn or on Twitter @mike7pilot

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, Zoe speaks with Heath Raftery, Head of Technology at boutique electronic product consultancy, Newie Ventures. Heath tells us about his background in computing and electrical engineering, and why the strengths and weaknesses of engineers led him to study economics, communication and human behaviour. He explains how he became interested in Smart concepts thanks to initiatives of the City of Newcastle, and how he sees Australia embracing the Smart Community space. Heath shares some of the projects he's currently working on, including the Smart Play initiative, which involves playful ways to capture, use and communicate Smart City data. Zoe and Heath then cover why integration really needs organisations being supportive of individuals being collaborative, and the emerging trend of making grass roots projects sustainable through financial as well as community support. A quick warning, the audio quality of this episode does diminish in the last few minutes of the interview, but it's very listenable and well worth it too, as it's such a great conversation about the importance of local champions in Smart Regions. 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 Heath via LinkedIn

Connect with me via email: [email protected]

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod

In this episode, Zoe had a fantastic chat to Dr. Flora Salim, Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Information Technology, RMIT University. She obtained her PhD in Computer Science from Monash University and her research areas are mobile and pervasive computing, urban computing, activity and behaviour recognition, and applied data mining and machine learning for ambient intelligence.

Flora shares with us how she sees Australia embracing Smart Community concepts, as well as some of the projects she's working on right now, including a foot traffic prediction app in Melbourne and a tool to help residents and tourists plan their BBQs in public parks. Zoe and Flora discuss change management and better integrating across disciplines, governments and industries.

They finish their conversation discussing the emerging trend of the good things happening because of AI, the need for choice and control when it comes to our data, and the concept of algorithmic governance. 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 Flora via LinkedIn and on Twitter @florsalim

Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod