Hi #SmartCommunity friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Community Podcast. I’m excited to share this episode with Bas Boorsma, the founder & CEO of Urban Innovators Inc and the author of ‘A New Digital Deal’. I have been wanting to get Bas on the podcast for a while and we finally made it happen. In this episode, Bas tells us about his 2 decade background in urban innovation and his passion for the course of human progress throughout history, and what a Smart Community means to him. We discuss the importance of balancing co-design and bottom up approaches with discernment and leadership, and the need for pragmatism and realism when engaging with citizens. Bas tells us about the maturing of Smart Community thinking over the years he’s been in the industry, and why governments and the public sector must balance their risk aversion with moonshot thinking if we are going to solve the problems facing us today.  Bas and I discuss his stint as the Chief Digital Officer for the City of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and the biggest projects and challenges there, including the practical things that can stop innovation in government. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of Smart City silos, the opportunities for AI to help humanity, and the importance of being open-minded about different cultural approaches driving convergence to what works best for the community. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Bas on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: [email protected]  Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTubeThe Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Community podcast. In this episode I have a great conversation with Michael Healy and Grace de Leon from Smart Christchurch, in New Zealand. You might remember Michael as he has been on the podcast before, Episode 244 in 2021. Michael and Grace tell us about their backgrounds, and the biggest changes they’ve seen in the Smart Community space over the last 6 years including the shift from technology-first to community-first approaches. We discuss the maturing of the Smart Community conversation towards more collaborative and out-comes focused work, and the natural progression from buzz words and pilots to substance and getting a return on investment for Smart initiatives.  Michael and Grace tells us about a couple of projects Smart Christchurch has been working on, including a fire detection network and a Smart View Data Sharing platform. We then talk about the Innovation Expo happening in Christchurch on the 10th and 11th of September 2023. I’m excited to be emceeing the event and can’t wait to be involved because they have some really interesting opportunities for engaging community and young people, not just the usual Smart City types.  We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends and what we’d like to see next in the space, from eSports to Smart Regions. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Grace and Michael on LinkedIn Find out more about the Innovation Expo via the website Innovationexpo.nz  Connect with me via email: [email protected] Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a brilliant conversation with Nancy Odendaal, who you may remember from way back in Episode 3 (back when we were still called the Smart City Podcast).  Nancy is Professor of City and Regional Planning at University of Cape Town and has been in this city space for decades. In this episode, Nancy and I discuss what Smart Community means to her and her research in Cape Town during the pandemic. We talk about data politics and how they relate to the city, city systems and infrastructure management.  Nancy then tells us about her book, ‘Disrupted Urbanism: Situated Smart Initiatives in African Cities’, why she wrote it and some of the lessons from it. We discuss the importance of co-designing and co-creating the Smart City with the community, and the emerging trends of interpreting AI from a more localised community perspective.  We finish our chat discussing the move towards a hybrid of old-fashioned offline community approaches combined with technological solutions as the next step in Smart Communities. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Nancy on Facebook, Instagram at @nomadicnancy Instagram or via email [email protected]  Connect with me via email: [email protected] Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends, in this episode of the Smart Community podcast I have a wonderful chat with Boopsie Maran. Boopsie is the founder and director of urban strategy at Places for Good, a collaborative of community advocates, planners, landscape architects, and artists, in Auckland, New Zealand.  Boopsie and I discuss her background and passion for walkability and ensuring the safety of kids independently travelling to school. We discuss what a Smart Community means to Boopsie and why the organisation is called Places for Good.  We talk about how to ask the right questions to collect the necessary data to make better decisions and the difficulties with measuring and communicating liveability and walkability benefits, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Boopsie tells us about the project she’s working on now involving walkability infrastructure improvement for a stretch of land near a school in Auckland, and the problems with short-term political cycles in local governments when it comes to liveability projects.  We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of using apps to feed community input back to local governments, and where to next when it comes to the efficiency of feeding data back to the people that make decisions in Smart Cities and Communities.  As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.  Connect with Boopsie on LinkedIn  Connect with Places for good via their website www.placesforgood.com or @placesforgood on TikTok, Instagram and 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, welcome back to another episode of The Smart Community Podcast. In this episode, I have a brilliant conversation with Natasha Blycha, the founder of the boutique digital law firm Stirling & Rose. Natasha advises on web 3.0, crypto assets, data, privacy, digital asset infrastructure and smart legal contracts and helped author the 2022 Oxford Smart Legal Contract text. In this episode, Natasha tells us about her background in emerging tech law and her passion for the digital free movement, and we discuss the need to balance frictionless tech solutions while still keeping humans involved and able to intervene in Smart Communities.  Natasha and I explore the rise of artificial intelligence and the possibilities of Smart Legal Contracts, as well as discussing the potential ‘terms and conditions’ of Smart Cities. Natasha tells us why she has a digital free room in her house and the human need to disconnect, and we talk about the benefits and risks of digital free national parks and other public spaces.  We finish our chat discussing the emerging idea of our ‘implantable’ future, and the need for regulated digital quiet times within it, as well as where to next for making data and AI more equitable.  You might have noticed in the last few episodes, we have left the ‘where to next for Smart Cities and Communities’ question in the main interview. We are making a little shift in our programming going forwards and won’t be doing the ‘Where to Next’ mash up episodes anymore. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.  Connect with Natasha on LinkedIn or the Stirling and Rose 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.