The Smart Community Podcast

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! I sat down with my podcast producer Ellen to record a little update episode, there is a little bit of Smart Community Podcast news and we want to keep you in the loop!  We are planning to take an extended break from the podcast because unfortunately my Mum is very unwell. So I'm going to take some time to be with her and just scale things back a little bit for a while. I will still be doing my consulting work for My Smart Community, working with my amazing clients that I have contracts with at the moment and into the future. But we're pressing pause on the podcast for a time while I spend time with my Mum and family, and while Ellen goes off on her second maternity leave. So your podcast feed won’t be updating for a while, but we will be back in some form or another later down the track.  In the meantime, connect with me on LinkedIn or email. I’m not going anywhere, just taking some time to pause and prioritise the people who are important to me.  Talk to you soon! Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! Welcome to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Samuel Austin from Episode 340, which was published in May 2023. Sam is an Urban Planner, Community Engagement Specialist and Placemaker, and also the NSW Young Planner of the Year 2022. In this episode, Sam tells us about his background in urban city planning, and his interest and passion for the relationship between people and place. We talk about the role data plays in planning and analysis of how people are using spaces, and Sam tells us about his work on the neon grid and nighttime economy strategy for Sydney. Sam and I discuss the importance of breaking down barriers and silos within cities and communities to foster an integrated approach for a seamless experience for customers, as well as what the nightime economy and neon grid looks like in semi urban and regional or rural settings. Sam tells us about community engagement projects he’s worked on in Sydney and we finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of live data allowing for appropriate and timely responses to community requirements. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Sam on LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunity friends! Welcome to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Michael Wanyama from Episode 335, which was released in March 2023 as part of our annual Mobility March series. Michael and I met at Smart City World Expo in Barcelona in November 2022 where his company Auto Safety Uganda won the Innovation Category of the World Smart City Award. In this episode Michael and I discuss his background in IT and automatic technology and why he’s so passionate about happy, healthy and inclusive communities. Michael tells us about the context in Kampala, Uganda, why it’s the best tourist destination in Africa and also about some of the challenges Uganda faces with traffic safety, vehicle reliability and air pollution due to lack of systems, skills, infrastructure and regulation. We talk about the many different areas of the community that transport impacts and the importance of supporting the community in the process of transitions to new and cleaner mobility options.  Michael tells us about the projects they are working on, including upskilling mechanics, promoting gender inclusivity in the automotive industry and collecting data to support policy change in Uganda. We also discuss the problem of African nations having to ‘copy and paste’ solutions from other countries but finding they don’t work in the African context. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of great ideas and policies being stymied by the lack of resources and skillsets to implement the changes, as well as the need for community engagement, leadership and education to work together to solve these problems. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Connect with Michael on Twitter or LinkedIn Follow AutoSafety Uganda on Twitter, LinkedIn or their website www.autosafety-ug.org   Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Dr. Michaela Musilova from Episode 339 which was released in May 2023. Dr. Michaela Musilova is an astrobiologist, speaker, analog astronaut and author. Michaela has been conducting space-related research at institutions around the world and was the Director of HI-SEAS and Commander of over 30 simulated missions to the Moon and Mars, in collaboration with NASA, ESA and many international organizations. She also writes articles for Space.com and co-authored her biography, A Woman from Mars. In this episode, Michaela tells us about her passion for space and for life on earth, how she got into this Space space, and some of the challenges she has overcome to pursue this dream. She tells us about why it’s so important to share with the public how science is helping humanity and how diversity and also food have both been key to the success of the missions she’s been involved with.  Michaela then tells us about the projects she’s worked on, including the Astro Seven Summits, which is focused on performing research related to life in space and also on extreme environments on earth. Michaela and I talk about how to link space exploration science with climate change, as well as what she thinks will happen on the first missions of humans living on Mars.  We finish our chat talking about whether there really is life on other planets, and Michaela tells us what she thinks about the likelihood of finding it. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Follow her on LinkedIn and Facebook, or on Instagram and Twitter @astro_michaela  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunity friends! Welcome to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. We’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week to kick off the series, we’re sharing my interview with Martin Darcy, who was on the show back in July 2022 in Episode 303. Martin is the Service Manager of Business and Innovation with Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council. In this episode, Martin starts off by telling us about his background in the tourism industry, his past roles and current role working in local government, and Martin tells us what a Smart Community means to him. Martin then tells us a bit about how his role at the Council has evolved over time, some of the challenges in the Smart Communities space he has faced in this time, before he discusses his experience working to embed Smart Communities in his organisation. He then shares with us some lessons learnt when measuring and monitoring Smart Community benefits, as well as some of the communication and community engagement challenges he has faced.  We then discuss the importance of educating the community about the benefits of Smart Communities and some of the elements that contribute to dealing with change. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of using data to make better informed decisions. There’s a few audio glitches in this interview but it’s a great conversation so we hope you will forgive us the imperfections. 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 Martin via LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community   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 the Smart Community Podcast. In this episode I have a fantastic conversation with Calum Handforth. Calum works for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and has led innovation and digitalisation efforts globally, as well as advised governments around the world. He was also Co-Chair of the Digital Infrastructure Taskforce, part of the World Economic Forum’s G20 Working Group on Smart Cities. In this episode, Calum and I discuss the types of things he works on at the UNDP, and the progress made on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals since they were introduced in 2015. We talk about using data and storytelling to drive progress and innovation, including Calum’s BLT acronym when thinking about data, and the potential of open source digital solutions to improve city infrastructure and services. Calum tells us about his favourite project he’s worked on at the UNDP, that incorporated a human-centred design approach to improve a market in Gambia, and the emerging trends of refocusing on the city as the centre of innovation and development.  We finish our chat discussing the importance of community and of sharing failures to achieve SDGs and Smart Community outcomes, plus the power of celebrating even small wins. As always we hope you have enjoyed this episode as much as we have enjoyed making it. Connect with Calum on LinkedIn, @calumah on Twitter/X and via email calum.handforth@undp.org Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 had a fantastic conversation with Nicole Stephensen, Partner at IIS Partners, a prominent privacy consultancy in Australia, where she leads privacy strategy and services. Long time listeners will remember that Nicole was on the podcast way back in Episode 69, in 2018, and again on our Covid Catch Up YouTube series in 2020. In this episode, Nicole and I discuss what’s changed in the privacy landscape in the last few years, for better and for worse, including data breaches and the review of Australia’s Privacy Act. Nicole reminds us of the essential principle of "Nothing about me, without me," stressing the imperative to engage and involve the community in co-designing solutions. We explore the vital role of public servants in keeping the needs of the community as a focus, and touch on the crossover between information security and privacy. Nicole and I then discuss the pros and cons of privacy laws and regulations, and Nicole advocates for a shift away from ‘incremental change’ in order to keep pace with the speed of technological advances. We finish our chat talking about the emerging trend of the intersection of privacy and AI, the potential for Smart City and Privacy Standards to be combined, and why we need to rethink the term ‘responsible AI’. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn or via IIS Partners Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  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 chat with Karandeep Chadha. Karandeep has two decades of diverse work experience in government services, infrastructure asset management, property, procurement, supply chain, consumer goods, technology and financial services industries for top tier Australian, US and European organisations. In this episode Karandeep tells us about his passion for innovation and Smart Cities, and how he ended up in the Smart Community Space. We talk about the importance of coming back to the business purpose and community requirements when implementing Smart solutions, and why foundational transferable skills are so beneficial considering the broad range of skills needed in the Smart Community. Karandeep tells us about some of the projects he’s been working on, including what he has been learning from New Zealand’s smaller scale ‘do more with less’ approach. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of cyber security and data privacy, as well as the need for affordability of Smart initiatives, and why partnering across different sectors and industries is the next step for Smart Communities. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Karandeep via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  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’m excited to have Jennifer Sanders back on the show for the 3rd time! Jennifer was also on the podcast back in Episode 170 and also Episode 284, so make sure you go back and check out those great conversations after you’ve listened to this one. I’m also excited to announce that Jennifer and I will be speaking on a panel together in Barcelona and the Smart Cities Expo World Congress on the 7th November 2023! It’s going to be fantastic.  In this episode, Jennifer tells us about what she does with the Dallas Innovation Alliance and some of the projects she’s worked on there, including a Digital Inclusion Project and a Drones and Robotics project. We discuss the different ways the Dallas Innovation Alliance collaborates with other groups and how it’s different to a traditional approach, as well as what’s changed in the last 18 months since she was last on the show. Jennifer then shares with us a bit about the Urban Resilience Fellows Program they are working on, which of course has an interdisciplinary focus, and the power of brave conversations and courageous collaborations for solving wicked problems.  Jennifer and I finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the fact that now you can find someone talking about almost everything within the Smart Community space, and why we need to lean into multigenerational connections and collaborations as the next step for Smart Communities. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn or via www.ntxia.org  or Dallasinnovationalliance.com   Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends. In this episode I have a fantastic conversation with Josh Sattler, the cofounder of TwentySeven Technologies and CEO of Circl Group. Josh tells us about his background in economic development and technology within local government, particularly at the City of Darwin, and how that led him to the companies he’s started. Josh and I discuss the potential of artificial intelligence to enhance community connectivity, as well as the benefits and risks of AI, and the need for diversity in the AI space. Josh tells us about some of the possibilities of using AI in government to make data driven decisions, and how he’s using AI daily in his work these days.  Josh and I then discuss his work at the City of Darwin, including the challenges and the project he’s most proud of, the MyDarwin online platform for economic stimulus that began during the early days of the pandemic and is still going strong. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the way Gen Z and Generation Alpha are integrating technology as they participate in society and why co-design with young people is the next step for Smart Communities. As always, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Josh on LinkedIn or via TwentySeven Tech or Circl Group Pty Ltd Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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, host Zoe Eather is back in the hot seat! In celebration of this being episode 350, Zoe and producer Ellen Ronalds Keene sat down for a chat where she answers questions from you, the audience of the Smart Community Podcast.  We can’t believe we’re at 350 episodes. It’s been nearly 6 years of the show and thank you so much for all of you tuning in! Zoe answers 4 questions today from the many that were sent through via LinkedIn. Thank you to those of you who submitted questions! 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: hello@mysmart.community      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. 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: hello@mysmart.community  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: hello@mysmart.community 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 Nancy.odendaal@uct.ac.za  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community  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: hello@mysmart.community  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 I have a fascinating conversation with Monalisha Thakur, the co-founder and CMO at Tummoc. Tummoc is India’s first multi-modal transport app that provides accurate real-time public transport information, easy ticketing options and last-mile connectivity.  In this episode, Monalisha tells us about her varied background in music and sales, and the problems she encountered commuting on public transport over the years that got her thinking about digitisation solutions. We talk about what Smart Community means to Monalisha and why everybody should have access to convenience and time-saving transport options, not just the wealthy.  Monalisha tells us about the journey of starting Tummoc, how the multimodal single ticket system works for users and the huge feat behind the digitisation of a whole transit network. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of making public transit users aware of the sustainability impacts they’re making by green commuting and what’s next for Tummoc. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Monalisha on LinkedIn or Twitter @mthakur69 Find out more about Tummoc at https://www.tummoc.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  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! On this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Katie Patrick. Katie is an environmental engineer, software designer, author and repeat guest who was last on the show in June 2021 in Episode 234. Katie tells us about her background and why she’s passionate about sustainability, as well as how feedback loops are central to her idea of Smart Communities. Katie and I discuss the need for individual actions as well as systemic change, and what she’s been up to since she was last on the podcast, including some of the gamification projects to get individuals to take more sustainability actions. Katie explains the power of human conversation and group identify for driving behavioural change, and the deep need we have for community connectedness. We finish our chat discussing the potential of using goal directed psychology in the sustainability movement and why it should be the next emerging trend. 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: hello@mysmart.community  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 brilliant conversation with Tegan Kop, an applied innovation expert and the lead for the Smart City Incubator at City of Melbourne. Tegan and I discuss their background and how they landed in the Smart Community space. They then tell us about some of their favourite projects working at the City of Melbourne Smart City Office, including behind-the-scenes nerdy stuff like managing data across the lifecycle. We talk about how the City of Melbourne is being transparent and accountable in the data they collect and inviting people into the conversation to build data and digital literacy of the community, as well as the global trend of mistrust towards both government and tech companies.  Tegan and I explore the opportunity for scaling local government tasks through sharing data and practice, as well as the ways our personal digital footprints could be better used if we had control or access. We finish our chat discussing the vital importance of digital inclusion and accessibility, including a great example of how the City of Melbourne approached digital exclusion and isolation during the lockdowns. 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 Tegan on LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! 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:  Tim Neale from Episode 337 Julia Spicer from Episode 338 Dr. Michaela Musilova from Episode 339 Samuel Austin from Episode 340 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around regionalisation and continued growth and investment in our regional areas, but also in the way we can continue to use technology and data to inform planning and analysis and decision making at all levels: local, state, national and even global.  The other theme that comes through in these snippets is around the opportunity for people to get involved in the Smart Community, whether it’s at the leadership level of business, industry or government, or just in the new job types and skillsets needed for the continued growth and development of our modern communities.  As Michaela says, “Even helping community on a small scale, if it's your neighbourhood or whatever it is, it’s still going to make that a better place and it's still going to make a difference.” 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: hello@mysmart.community  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 the Smart Community podcast. In this episode, I have a great conversation with Samuel Austin. Sam is an Urban Planner, Community Engagement Specialist and Placemaker, and also the NSW Young Planner of the Year 2022. In this episode, Sam tells us about his background in urban city planning, and his interest and passion for the relationship between people and place. We talk about the role data plays in planning and analysis of how people are using spaces, and Sam tells us about his work on the neon grid and nighttime economy strategy for Sydney. Sam and I discuss the importance of breaking down barriers and silos within cities and communities to foster an integrated approach for a seamless experience for customers, as well as what the nighttime economy and neon grid looks like in semi urban and regional or rural settings. Sam tells us about community engagement projects he’s worked on in Sydney and we finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of live data allowing for appropriate and timely responses to community requirements. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Sam on LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Community Podcast. In this episode I have a fascinating conversation with Dr. Michaela Musilova, an astrobiologist, speaker, analog astronaut and author. Michaela has been conducting space-related research at institutions around the world and was the Director of HI-SEAS and Commander of over 30 simulated missions to the Moon and Mars, in collaboration with NASA, ESA and many international organizations. She is currently a visiting Professor at the Slovak University of Technology, Global Faculty at the International Space University and Head of Research of the space technology company NEEDRONIX. She also writes articles for Space.com and co-authored her biography, A Woman from Mars. In this episode, Michaela tells us about her passion for space and for life on earth, how she got into this Space space, and some of the challenges she has overcome to pursue this dream. She tells us about why it’s so important to share with the public how science is helping humanity and how diversity and also food have both been key to the success of the missions she’s been involved with.  Michaela then tells us about the projects she’s worked on, including the Astro Seven Summits, which is focused on performing research related to life in space and also on extreme environments on earth. Michaela and I talk about how to link space exploration science with climate change, as well as what she thinks will happen on the first missions of humans living on Mars.  We then discuss the emerging trend of commercial investment in space and especially in things like rockets, but why it’s not just rockets that make successful missions. Michaela shares with us her concerns about the commercial space race potentially taking unnecessary risks for the sake of meeting goals and boosting egos.  We finish our chat talking about whether there really is life on other planets, and Michaela tells us what she thinks about the likelihood of finding it. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect: Follow her on LinkedIn and Facebook, or on Instagram and Twitter @astro_michaela  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends, welcome back to the Smart Community Podcast. This month we are highlighting Smart Regions with two fantastic guests. If you haven’t yet listened to our interview with Tim Neale in the last episode, I definitely recommend listening to it after this one. In this episode, I have a wonderful chat with repeat guest and Queensland Chief Entrepreneur, Julia Spicer. We first had Julia on the podcast way back in Episode 152, which was in January 2020. (The beforetimes!) In this episode, Julia and I discuss what a Smart Community means for her and what has changed for Queensland regions since January 2020. We talk about the COVID experience and how it can teach us about what rural communities experience in prolonged drought and other parallel type experiences. Julia tells us about the generosity of spirit that she sees coming through in regional Queensland, and what COVID has taught us in terms of regional and industry level resilience.  Julia and I explore the role of technology and data when responding to crisis, and the role of government in supporting people and businesses to modernise. We talk about the absolute necessity of internet connectivity and the challenges and opportunities for Smart Communities in regional areas. Julia then tells us about the projects she’s involved in as part of her role with the Office of the Chief Entrepreneur in Queensland, as well as the emerging trends of global workforce shortages and the need for sovereign capability in Australia to support supply chains and industries. We finish our chat discussing how everyone in Queensland can leverage the opportunity of the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, even if you think it doesn’t apply to you. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.  Connect with Julia via LinkedIn or with Engage and Create Consulting on Facebook and Instagram @engageandcreate Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  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 the Smart Community Podcast and this month we are highlighting Smart Regions with two fantastic guests. First up is Tim Neale, the co-founder and Managing Director of agtech company DataFarming. We first had Tim on the podcast in Episode 308 in August 2022. Then we featured Tim again in our recent Summer Series so we knew we had to get him back on the podcast. In this episode, we get a little update from Tim about what he’s been up to since we last spoke. We talk about how much and how fast satellite technology is improving and the many ways the data can support farmers in making better decisions and increasing yield, efficiency and sustainability on farms. Tim shares how a number of macroeconomic factors globally are having big impacts regionally for farmers in Australia, and we discuss the opportunities and challenges of our interconnected and interdependent world. Tim then tells us about some of the new projects his team is working on, including using data to help farmers demonstrate the sustainability of their operations, and an investigation into the long term performance of Australian farms. We talk about the impacts of weather and climate change not only on farm production but also the mental health of farmers and rural communities, as well as the big problem with connectivity and access to communication technologies in regional and remote areas. We finish this episode discussing the emerging trend of robots and automation being used on farms and how technological innovation can solve agricultural problems. 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 Tim via LinkedIn or Twitter  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community   Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #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:  Dan Barr from Episode 330 Jessica Coldrey from Episode 332 Bonnie Shaw from Episode 333 Mike Day from Episode 334 Michael Wanyama from Episode 335 Being the end of our Mobility March series, there’s a strong mobility theme, particularly with ideas for transport and town planning and policy decisions that impact all our communities.But the main theme that comes through in the guest answers is around getting communities engaged and building their literacy in how they can play a role in shaping the communities they are a part of. This includes getting involved ourselves in our own local groups, using data to make better decisions and also making sure policies and resources are there to support our bottom-up community design ambitions.As Dan Barr says, “We'll be able to use technology in the future to help us build more democratic places that have community input to how we live.”As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!Connect:Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTubeThe Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #SmartCommunity friends, and welcome to our second Mobility March episode! In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a brilliant conversation with Michael Wanyama. Michael and I met at Smart City World Expo in Barcelona in November 2022 where his company Auto Safety Uganda won the Innovation Category of the World Smart City Award. In this episode Michael and I discuss his background in IT and automatic technology and why he’s so passionate about happy, healthy and inclusive communities. Michael tells us about the context in Kampala, Uganda, why it’s the best tourist destination in Africa and also about some of the challenges Uganda faces with traffic safety, vehicle reliability and air pollution due to lack of systems, skills, infrastructure and regulation. We talk about the many different areas of the community that transport impacts and the importance of supporting the community in the process of transitions to new and cleaner mobility options.  Michael tells us about the projects they are working on, including upskilling mechanics, promoting gender inclusivity in the automotive industry and collecting data to support policy change in Uganda. We also discuss the problem of African nations having to ‘copy and paste’ solutions from other countries but finding they don’t work in the African context. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of great ideas and policies being stymied by the lack of resources and skillsets to implement the changes, as well as the need for community engagement, leadership and education to work together to solve these problems. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Connect with Michael on Twitter or LinkedIn Follow AutoSafety Uganda on Twitter, LinkedIn or their website www.autosafety-ug.org   Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community  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 and welcome to Mobility March! This month I have 2 great episodes for you all about the theme of mobility. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great chat with Mike Day from integrated planning, design and placemaking practice Hatch RobertsDay. Mike tells us about his background in town planning and why he is so passionate about shaping neighbourhoods and making better places for humans and nature. We have a great discussion about his aversion to the term Smart and the importance of long-term thinking in building sustainable, connected and liveable cities. Mike shares a great example of this regarding putting a train line in a new suburb, and how some governments don’t do it because they are caught up in short term thinking. Mike and I explore how we can make more accessible neighbourhoods that privilege the transport modes of walking and cycling over cars, and why it’s town planning and design to blame for our current car dependence. We talk about the decline of kids walking to school and the importance of planning places and cities for children. Mike then tells us a bit about the history of Copenhagen’s intentional creation of a culture of active transport and what we can learn from precedents like that. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the distributed or hybrid workplace, the future of mobility in our neighbourhoods, plus the new dual mandate for Transport Departments of both movement AND place. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Mike on LinkedIn and Twitter @walkplace Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends, welcome to this bonus episode of the podcast! We will be kicking off Mobility March next week but this week I wanted to share this fantastic conversation I had with Bonnie Shaw. Bonnie is co-founder of Place Intelligence, a geo-AI startup focused on democratising access to big data to support evidence based design, policy and decision making. She has a varied background in landscape architecture, urban design and game design and in her role as the Smart City Practice Lead at the City of Melbourne, Bonnie helped to establish and lead Australia’s first (and multi-award winning) Smart Cities team. In this episode, we talk about the importance of building literacy and critical thinking around Smart concepts in our Smart Communities, and Bonnie’s framework for meaningful change that looks at toolset, skill set, and mindset. Bonnie tells us about Place Intelligence and some of the projects they’ve been working on, including the Data Informed Design conference which will be held in Melbourne on the 23rd and 24th of March 2023. Tickets are out now so click the link to get yours now! Bonnie and I finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of opportunities for engagement to help people understand the things that are influencing our lives, plus how game design helps us approach community engagement! As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn or PlaceIntelligence.ai Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! In this episode I have a great chat with return guest Jess Coldrey. Now we first had Jess on the podcast back in Episode 258, which was released in October 2021. But more recently we re-shared that episode as part of our Summer Series and promised to have her back for an update, so here it is! In this episode Jess and I talk about what she’s been up to in the last 18 months, including doing her Masters of Humanitarian Engineering in the UK. She tells us what Humanitarian Engineering is, and what a Smart Community means to her. We discuss the power of having different experiences and disciplines involved in projects because it leads to asking a different set of questions, and why we should be shifting to a more community-led project design approach. Jess then tells us about her work in endometriosis advocacy, including becoming a Laureat of The Australian French Association for Innovation and Research. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the role of AI and machine learning in art, and how that influences work more broadly, including what we do with our time as more and more is automated. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Jess on LinkedIn and art website jesscoldrey.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends and welcome to this very special bonus episode to celebrate the Smart Community Podcast’s 5th Birthday! Our Podcast Producer Ellen Ronalds Keene jumps into the host seat to interview Zoe about the history of the podcast, the ways it has changed Zoe’s life and the impact it has had on others. Ellen and Zoe discuss the network effect of the podcast and the ways the Smart space has matured over the last 5 years. Zoe shares why she is excited about seeing Smart being embedded in boring government processes, and the opportunities and challenges of the ‘collision of professions’ in the space. Zoe and Ellen finish their chat sharing what they are looking forward to including Smart concepts becoming general public conversations and a personal example of why this work is so important. Thanks so much for tuning in over the years, #SmartCommunity friends! We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Connect with Ellen on LinkedIn or hello@perkdigital.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity Friends and welcome to the first new episode of 2023! We hope you enjoyed our summer series sharing some of our favourite episodes over the preview 12-18 months. In today’s episode I have a fantastic conversation with old friend of the show, Dan Barr! Now Dan has been on the show before but it was way back in the early days, in episode 44 in 2018. Dan leads the multi-disciplinary consultancy, Better Cities Group and is a co-founder of the major event planning technology collaboration, Better Events VR. The Better Cities Group specialises in design, economics and engagement and proudly supports clients in the private, public and start-up sectors throughout the APAC region. In this episode, Dan and I discuss how our thinking has changed on a number of topics since 2018, and how the Smart space in general has matured. We talk about the problem of unintended consequences of technology, and the tension between political ambition and commercial reality in Smart projects. Dan tells us a bit about some projects he’s working on, and he tells us what he thinks will be the big story of the next 10 years in city and urban development. We discuss why we need to get the hierarchy right between people and cars when designing our cities, and the importance of both qualitative and quantitative data, what I like to call the numbers and the stories. We finish our chat talking about the emerging trend of geopolitical factors in the Smart space. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Dan on LinkedIn, via the Better Cities Group website or email danbarr@bettercitiesgroup.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunity friends! Welcome to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Tim Neale from Episode 308, which was released in August 2022. Tim, who was named Australian Agricultural Consultant of the year 2018, has over 25 years’ experience across Australia and internationally, 20 of which has been running his own agtech businesses. He is co-founder and Managing Director of DataFarming, a five-year old agtech business out of Queensland. In this episode, Tim begins by telling us about his background in agtech and current work, his passion for helping farmers to up-skill and use tech to enhance their farming, and Tim tells us what a Smart Community means to him. Tim then tells us what led him to work in the agtech space, we discuss how technology can help in this space, and Tim tells us a bit about his company DataFarming and what they do. Tim then discusses some of the positive impacts his work has had for his clients, the changes he has seen in the agtech space over time, and we discuss the role of data in the future of the agriculture industry. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of tackling data connectivity and data processing sustainably to unlock the possibilities that data can provide. Tim’s interview is the last in our Summer Series but we will be back next week with a brand new episode and after that we will return to the fortnightly release schedule. We’ve got some great guests lined up in 2023 and of course if you have suggestions of guests or topics, do reach out, we’d love to hear from you. 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 Tim via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my conversation with Raymond Sun and Susannah Wilkinson from Episode 276, which was released in February 2022. Ray is a solicitor at Herbert Smith Freehills, specialising in technology, media and telecommunications and privacy law. Susannah is the Digital Law Lead - Australia & Asia at the same firm, leading the development of Smart Legal Contracts and the provision of digital law solutions in conjunction with the development of the Australian National Blockchain. We start off by talking about Ray and Susannah’s backgrounds in law and their current work looking at how laws are able to adapt to the new issues of emerging technology. Ray then tells us about his passion for technology and AI, and Susannah, her passion for improving digitised processes and how that involves the law, before they tell us what a Smart Community means to them. We then discuss the importance of data in Smart Communities, the increased use of data and risks associated and therefore the importance of having legal frameworks in place. We then discuss how data leads to Smart Communities and emerging technologies. Ray and Susannah then share with us a bit about some of the projects they were working on at the time of recording and we finish our chat discussing several emerging trends including; lawyers roles in Smart Communities and forward looking legislation, digital twin representation and accountability in the ‘real world’, more flexible and adaptable infrastructure projects, shifts in privacy laws and finally digital identity. We will be sure to get Ray and Susannah back on the show in future for a full update about what they’ve been up to since we recorded this episode and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Susannah via HSF Digital Law Group Website Connect with Raymond via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Laila Al Hadhrami from Episode 263, which was released in November 2021. At the time of recording, Laila was the Smart Cities Development Manager at the National Energy Centre in Oman and ready to talk about her favourite topic, Smart Cities. Laila begins by telling us about her background and her passion for the digital world and Smart Cities, how sustainability drew her into the Smart Communities space and we discuss the importance of knowledge sharing in Smart Communities. Laila then shares with us how she is working to build Smart Communities in Oman, what a Smart Community is to her and we discuss the importance of investing in people’s skills and empowering people. Laila then tells us about her work leading Smart City projects at the National Energy Centre, before she discusses how Oman has embraced the Smart Community concept and its evolution over the last 5 years. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of serving the basic needs first in communities before looking to the future, and the changes the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to our working and online learning lives. We will be sure to get Laila back on the show in future for a full update about what she has been up to since we recorded this episode and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Laila via LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Jess Coldrey, from way back in Episode 258, which was released in October 2021. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a fascinating talk with Jess Coldrey about how art can shape the future of Smart Communities. Jess is a human geographer and creative technology artist and through her work, aims to harness the under-utilised potential of infrastructure to address social and environmental needs. Jess tells us about her varied and interesting background, her studies in Visual Arts and Human Geography, her current work and latest venture heading to England to study humanitarian engineering, before telling us about her passion for futurism and how societies progress in a socially different way. Jess and I discuss how her work fits into the Smart Communities space, how she has used her creative and collaborative skills in past projects to bring in new ways of thinking and ideas, how her training has helped give a different perspective and what a Smart Community is to her. Jess then shares with us some of the projects she has been working on as well as some of her achievements before we discuss how art can trigger emotional responses allowing people to think differently and boldly about the future of communities, how art galleries and libraries could potentially be the hub of communities and the value that could bring. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the post Covid world and the different requirements communities will need in future. Since we recorded this interview, Jess has been up to a lot! She was named Top 50 Women in Engineering in the UK; she did an art residency in France raising awareness of endometriosis; she obtained her MSc in England as a John Monash Scholar, focusing on drone tree planting; she exhibited a piece in the Tate Britain, which houses the UK's national collection of art; spoke on the radio about inspiring and retaining women in engineering; created a series of 3D scanned postcards to encourage environmental volunteering and recently she’s been to India as a United Nations UNLEASH Global Talent to work in international teams prototyping technological solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals. She’s got some exciting projects on the horizon too, including leading a drone tree planting project with AirSeed/RedCross, responding to landslides and flooding in Lismore here in Australia, and she’s doing an art residency at King's College London Engineering, working with robotics and photography to help shape a creative identity for the new department, and understand 'what inspires us' as engineers to share with the world and encourage others into the profession. We will be sure to get Jess back on the show in future for a full update about what she has been up to since we recorded this episode and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Jess via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Katie Patrick, from way back in Episode 234, which was released in June 2021. Katie is an environmental engineer, software designer, author and co-founder of the two environmental database startups Energy Lollipop and Urban Canopy. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast we begin our conversation by Katie telling us about 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. One recent project of Katie’s that has happened since this interview is the Sustainability Street masterclass she’s been running, which is about how to gamify neighbourhood decarbonisation. We’ll pop a link in the show notes if you want to check that out. And of course we will be sure to get Katie back on the show in the new year for a full update about what she has been up to since we recorded this episode and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Katie via LinkedIn Twitter or Instagram Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. We’re taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we’re sharing my interview with Michael Holmstrom, from way back in episode 201, which was released in November of 2020. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great chat with Michael Holstrom, the CEO of STEM Punks (and that’s STEM as in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths.) STEM Punks provides immersive STEM programs for students and teachers from grade 1 to 12 and through their programs, enables creative and entrepreneurial thinking to inspire tomorrow's innovators. In this episode Michael and I discuss his background as an engineer and in technology commercialisation and startup development, as well as what sparked his interest in the Smart Community concept. Michael then explains how STEM Punks came to be and why the real world application of STEM skills is so important, not just learning to code in isolation. We share our thoughts on buzzwords and acronyms, like STEAM, but why STEM is the foundation. Michael tells us what STEM punks does in both the education and home market and how they’ve shifted in 2020 with COVID accelerating their shift to online delivery. We discuss technology as an enabler for humans, the importance of lifelong learning and the mindset shifts we need in order to think more holistically and change the narrative of what STEM is. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of AI and the ethical and philosophical conversations that are needed now that the technology is here, as well as Michael’s favourite resources. We will be sure to get Michael back on the show in future for a full update about what he has been up to since we recorded this episode and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Michael via LinkedIn or at stempunks.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #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: Peter Bjorn Larson from Episode 319 Johanna Hoffman from Episode 320 Suzanne and Ashish Prabhudesai from Episode 321 Sarah Pink from Episode 322 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around making the future better for the humans and the environment, collaborating and integrating across sectors and organisations, and of course using technology intentionally, effectively and responsibly. We have so many tools and technologies now and the Smart City message has come a long way in the industries that are connected to it, but we still have a lot of work to do to make sure we aren’t getting caught up in tech for tech’s sake but making real impact and bringing citizens into the conversation. There are also so many ways we are still working in silos or getting stuck in pilot mode, so continued collaboration and participation is a must within organisations, between organisations, between the public and private sector, and with the general public as well. And of course what is the point of any of this Smart Community approach if we aren’t aiming to make the future a better place, more liveable, accessible and sustainable for humans and the planet. Sarah tells us about some of the projects her team is working on in this realm, and Johanna reminds us that the decisions we make now will have ramifications for our children’s children. As Suzanne says, “It's about ensuring that people are not slaves of the technology, but are making use of it to drive better outcomes, not just for now, but for the future, as well.” 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 chat with Sarah Pink, Founding Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University in Melbourne. Sarah is a Futures and Design Anthropologist and in this episode she tells us about her background in both anthropology and as a documentary filmmaker, and how that has shaped her career. We then talk about some of the projects Sarah has been working on with the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, including some key insights from some of these projects. Sarah and I discuss why you need to start projects from a place of values and outcomes, rather than starting with the data, and how we can enable people to connect technologies with their human values. Sarah also tells us about a really interesting and powerful approach called ‘Thing Ethnography’ that involves roleplaying people as technology in order to understand what people actually want from their technology, not just what technologists think they want. We finish our chat discussing the problem of Smart City debates being driven by people who don’t understand real life contexts, and why we should be simulating future experiences to get a better understanding of how people behave in order to better plan for the future. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn or Twitter @pinkydigital Find out more about the Emerging Technologies Research Lab on the Monash Website or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 fascinating chat with Suzanne and Ashish Prabhudesai about the app they created called RemoveAlist, which helps people project manage their house move while also participating in the circular economy and promoting sustainability and waste reduction. We start off talking about what Smart Community means to each of them, and then Suzanne and Ashish tell us how their own house moves and also recent natural disasters in Australia inspired them to create the app, and their tech startup Simply Save Australia. We talk about how harnessing data at the time of moving house can save people money and resources and brain power, the status of the app development itself, and some different use cases they’ve found based on feedback and collaborations. We finish our conversation discussing the need to provide kids the opportunity to move into the Smart space and getting kids involved as active citizens of the future. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Suzanne on LinkedIn and Ashish on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 fascinating conversation with urbanist and author Johanna Hoffman. Johanna is the founder of the research and action institute Design for Adaptation, and works primarily at the nexus of design, planning, fiction and futures. We talk about what a Smart Community is for her, and what inspired Johanna to write her book, which is called “Speculative Futures: Design Approaches to Navigate Change, Foster Resilience and Co-Create the Cities We Need”. Johanna tells us how we need to be using our imaginations more in our Smart Cities and Communities work, how that can build our personal and social resilience, and why we need to focus on future possibilities not just solving current problems. Johanna and I discuss the issue of information overload and interpreting data so that citizens can actually understand it and the role memory plays in speculative futures. We finish our chat talking about the dangers of tech goggles and silver bullet thinking. As always, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Johanna on LinkedIn, her website or Instagram @johannaehoffman Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 podcast I have a fantastic conversation with Peter Bjorn Larsen, the founder of Smart City Insights, which is a Smart City advisory consultancy based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Now you may remember Peter from way back in Episode 190. In this episode we discuss some of the projects Peter has worked on, from Copenhagen to Canada to Scotland. Peter tells us about why it’s so important to have both public and private sector working together on Smart Community projects, and how we can create projects with multiple benefits or different benefits for different stakeholders. Peter and I then talk about the concept of data collaboratives, and how they’re different to data marketplaces, plus why we should be using data to solve “normal” problems. We explore the problem of “who will pay for it?” when trying to work collaboratively and break out of silos, and Peter tells us about the real reason we need walkable cities. We finish our chat discussing why Peter tries to never use the word ‘data’ when talking to people about Smart City projects, and how useful Digital Twins will be in the future for helping citizens visualise projects. At the end of our chat we also mention being in Barcelona, I’m heading off to the Barcelona Smart City Expo in November. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect: Connect with Peter on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #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: Leni Schwendinger from Episode 313 Emran Amin from Episode 314 Cheryl Desha from Episode 316 David Catalovski and Louis Limnios from Episode 317 Some themes that came through in these guest answers were around having more creativity and imagination in the way we think about Smart projects, keeping the customer and context of different projects in focus, and balancing that with the need for standardisation and interoperability. We talk about the fact that different contexts require different approaches and that a mature Smart Community learns from other projects but doesn’t just think that ‘one size fits all’. While at the same time, we need more interoperability and some level of standardisation so we can actually collaborate and share data and knowledge. As Emran says, “Once we streamline things and [have a] more standardized approach in adopting Smart technology and learning from each other, having those communications...then we can work together and have more effective pathways [for the] future.” Several guests also mentioned the need for more creativity and imagination, but that we also need space and time for that creativity to happen. And hopefully the conversations we have here on the Smart Community podcast spark some ideas for you and prompt reflections and conversations in all of these areas going forwards. 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with David Catalovski and Louis Limnios. Now, you might remember David from way back in episode 140, which was in 2019, in the before-times. David is the co-founder of Green Be, and Louis is the Chief Customer Officer and Director of Nucleus 3. I’ve had them on the podcast together today because they are working together on some interesting projects in the area of IoT, community engagement and Smart management of resources such as water, waste and energy. After telling us about their companies and what they are each passionate about, David, Louis and I discuss the importance of measuring more than the things that have traditionally been measured when making investment decisions as a local government or organisation, plus the challenges and rewards of being a pioneer using IoT for resource management. David and Louis tell us about trends in projects they’ve been working on, including councils working together to leverage data for interoperable customer engagement and how opening the conversation to the community not only gets more people at the table but also helps find new use cases for the IoT data. We finish our chat talking about how we are finally getting away from the mentality that “deploying something is enough” and moving towards using data to measure outcomes and deliver better solutions, plus the emerging issue of data security that poses for councils. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with David via LinkedIn or via email  Connect with Louis via LinkedIn or via email  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Cheryl Desha. Cheryl tells us about her background in Mauritius and Australia, and in Environmental Engineering, Disaster Management and Resilience. We discuss why resilience, including digital resilience, needs to be part of the Smart Community conversation, and how we can forward plan for better disaster management. Cheryl tells us about ways communities often come together in practical ways after disasters and how we can continue those positive aspects of community long term. We talk about how it’s important to balance the wonderful things about technology, such as data driven decision making and digital twins helping us be agile, with the way our digital junk food diet has reduced our ability to focus. Cheryl shares with us some of the projects she’s working on and some of the great books she’s been reading. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the need for Digital Resilience in the Smart Community space. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Connect with Cheryl on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! This is a bit of a bonus episode of the Smart Community podcast because we are catching up with a former guest but it’s a very different conversation than we usually have. So in this episode I have a brilliant chat with Joy Taylor, who you might remember from way back in Episode 154. Joy is a banker turned Coworking Space Founder and Startup Mentor, turned Software Developer and Digital Nomad. So when we last spoke, Joy was the Community Manager of Canvas Coworking space here in Toowoomba, but in this episode we talk about how that’s changed as well as why and how she decided to re-train to work in tech. Joy tells us about where she has been travelling as a digital nomad this year, and we discuss the differences between levels of infrastructure compared to levels of community in big cities versus more regional or rural locations. We finish our conversation talking about the power of living by your values, and the importance of providing relevant, timely and easy-to-absorb information for people in order to elicit behaviour change. As always we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Connect with Joy on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube Podcast Production by Perk Digital

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great conversation with Engineer and Smart Technologies advocate, Dr Emran Amin. Emran tells us about his background as an engineer and academic and his passion for contributing his knowledge of Smart Technologies. Emran explains a bit about the standard for barcodes, parallels between standardisation of barcode technologies to other Smart Technologies such as printable RFID and why interoperability is so important. We then discuss what he’s been working on with the City of Casey as a Community Reference group member in the Smart Casey team, plus some interesting projects he’s worked on in his home country of Bangladesh. We finish our chat talking about data ethics shaping the future of Smart Cities and Communities, and how context really changes the way you approach Smart technologies, data-driven decision making and community engagement. 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 Emran via LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Leni Schwendinger. Leni is a published, award-winning authority on the many issues of city lighting with more than 20 years of experience creating worldwide illuminated environments. In this episode Leni begins by telling us about her background in arts and community activism, her passion for weaving those two things together and what sparked her interest in the Smart Communities space. Leni then shares with us what a Smart Community means to her, and takes us through her journey that led her to the work she is doing now, before she shares with us some of her observations and learnings of the city lighting space and some of the differences she has seen across cultures and different job types. Leni then discusses the role city lighting plays in safety, in particular for more vulnerable groups of society, and shares with us some of the projects she has been working on recently. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of community engagement and the value it can bring to Smart Communities. 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 Leni via LinkedIn  Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 host Zoe Eather is back in the hot seat! Zoe and producer Ellen Ronalds Keene sat down for a chat where she answers questions from you, the audience of the Smart Community Podcast. We can’t believe we’re at over 312 episodes and now over 162,000 downloads. It’s been just over 4 years of the show and thank you so much for all of you tuning in! Zoe answers 5 questions today from the many that were sent through via LinkedIn. Thank you to those of you who submitted questions! 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: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #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: Russell Bennett from Episode 307 Tim Neale from Episode 308 Ryan McManus from Episode 309 Gaya Gounder from Episode 310 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around corridor concepts in our cities, breaking down silos and nurturing the culture of innovation, regional partnerships and keeping and retaining skill sets. We talk a lot about embedding the Smart Communities approach, which is important to break down silos and barriers so we can move forward with our Smart Communities initiatives. We need to continue to think differently and creatively to really gain traction and start seeing some of the benefits Smart Communities can bring. Another theme our guests are commonly finding is skills shortages in their particular regions, and really want to work on keeping and retaining those skill sets. It really is time to start uplifting our regions and showcasing regional capacity and capabilities, and educating school leavers on the many career paths of STEM to either attract those needed skill sets or retain the current talent in our regions. As Tim Neale says, “Trying to educate early stage school leavers to the potential of what opportunities lie ahead, for the region's I think that's a massive thing we've got to do right now. And hopefully, people coming out of the cities back into regional areas, is going to drive some of those incredible skill sets that we need back in the regions to solve these big problems that we've got.” 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Gaya Gounder. Gaya is the Chief Information Officer at Camden City Council and has several years of experience leading data, technology, and innovation teams at multiple levels of government including state and local. In this episode Gaya begins by telling us about her background in the IT industry in both local and state government and her passion for implementing solutions that make an impact on the community. Gaya then tells us how she got into the Smart Communities space and what a Smart Community means to her. Gaya then takes us through some of the projects she has been working on, some use cases for the use of digital twins, and the Camden Council Smart Community journey. Gaya then discusses the Camden approach to integrating across different disciplines, the different skill sets she has seen coming through the council and the challenges that go with attracting those skill sets, as well as some of the challenges she has faced developing strategies for local government. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of more emphasis on the ethics, privacy and use of data for AI and machine learning. 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 Gaya via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Ryan McManus. Ryan is a mobility entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of SHARE Mobility, a technology company based in Columbus, Ohio that helps organisations solve complex transportation problems with mobility-as-a-service. I last spoke with Ryan in 2020 so it was great to catch up on what he has been up to since then. Ryan begins by telling us about his background in mobility and current work in mobility-as-a-service, what a Smart Community means to him, and we catch up on what Ryan has been up to since we last spoke in 2020. Ryan then tells us about the changes he has seen in the mobility-as-a-service space due to the pandemic, he discusses the benefits to shared mobility and also how shared mobility can unlock the employment market. Ryan then takes us through the journey he has been on with his company SHARE Mobility. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of companies offering commuter benefits and mandating commuter policies. 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 Ryan via LinkedIn or sharemobility.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Tim Neale. Tim, who was named Australian agricultural consultant of the year 2018, has over 25 years’ experience across Australia and internationally, 20 of which has been running his own agtech businesses. He is co-founder and Managing Director of DataFarming, a five-year old agtech business out of Queensland. In this episode, Tim begins by telling us about his background in agtech and current work, his passion for helping farmers to up-skill and use tech to enhance their farming, and Tim tells us what a Smart Community means to him. Tim then tells us what led him to work in the agtech space, we discuss how technology can help in this space, and Tim tells us a bit about his company DataFarming and what they do. Tim then discusses some of the positive impacts his work has had for his clients, the changes he has seen in the agtech space over time, and we discuss the role of data in the future of the agriculture industry. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of tackling data connectivity and data processing sustainably to unlock the possibilities that data can provide. 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 Tim via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Russell Bennett. Russell has been the Manager of Business Systems at Southern Grampians Shire Council since April 2015. Prior to his current role he has 13+ years’ experience working as IT Project Manager and Business Analyst across a number of industries both in the private and public sector. In this episode Russell tells us about his background in business, IT and Project Management, what sparked his interest in the Smart Communities space, and what has driven the Southern Grampians Shire’s Smart Community approach. Russell then talks about the Digital Innovation and Smart Agriculture (DISA) festival the council has started to help educate the community, before he takes us through some use cases for the use of LoRaWAN and IoT in Southern Grampians. We then discuss the importance of embedding data into our decision making and educating the community about the use of data, as well as the importance of embedding the Smart Community approach across our organisations, and Russell tells us about his favourite project he has been working on. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of leveraging data to improve emergency services decision making. 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 Russell via LinkedIn or via email: Rbennett@sthgrampians.Vic.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunityfriends! And hello to our listeners in Irbid, Jordan, you are amongst this month's top cities for episode downloads! 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: Sandra Phillips from Episode 302 Martin Darcy from Episode 303 Zubin Pratap from Episode 304 And finally Elisabeth L’Orange from Episode 305 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around collaboration and more integrated thinking to becoming more resilient, getting the maximum value out of data and more accessibility to data. Smart Communities are about thinking differently to get the most out of everything we have including data and resources. It is so important to draw the maximum value out of data, to have the greatest impact on our communities and organisations. As Elisabeth L’Orange says, “having training data sets that are accessible for everyone and democratising data, I think is [where] we should all begin, so it's easier for Smart Cities and Communities [and] startups to actually build something to have an impact.” 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 Elisabeth L’Orange. Elisabeth is the co-founder of Oxolo, a Hamburg based company that specialises in virtualizing people by creating AI-powered chatbot avatars indistinguishable from reality, and ready to engage and communicate. In this episode Elisabeth starts by telling us about her background in law and startups, her passion for the planet, ethics and human rights as well as her passion for her kids and the outdoors. Elisabeth then shares with us what a Smart Community means to her, we discuss how certain biases can affect data sets and Elisabeth explains what synthetic data is. Elisabeth then tells us a bit about her company Oxolo and the work they do, what inspired her to get into the AI space and shares with us some use cases where AI benefits society and can improve the community. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of synthetic media. 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 Elisabeth via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 another insightful conversation with Zubin Pratap. Zubin has successfully built careers in 3 domains including international corporate law, commercialisation strategy and software engineering and is a self-taught coder. Zubin also commits to personally coaching people to show them how to change careers at any stage, any age, and anywhere. Zubin was last a guest way back in Episode 37 (when we were The Smart City Podcast) in 2018, so I am very happy to have him back on the podcast and having this conversation. In this episode we begin by Zubin telling us about his varied and interesting background in law, business, startups and software engineering, Zubin then tells us what a Smart Community means to him, and also tells us about the work he does and passion for helping people to transition careers. We then discuss the factors that contribute to people wanting to change careers, as well as how to deal with change and how to progress in Smart Communities. Zubin then shares with us some of his observations of the metaverse space, we discuss the importance of diversity in thought in Smart Communities, and Zubin shares with us some of the projects has been working on since we last spoke, as well as some of his favourite learnings from those projects. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of taking small steps to make big impacts on the environment, and the changing role of education in our lives. 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 Zubin via LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Martin Darcy. Martin is the Service Manager of Business and Innovation with Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council. In this episode, Martin starts off by telling us about his background in the tourism industry, his past roles and current role working in local government, and Martin tells us what a Smart Community means to him. Martin then tells us a bit about how his role at the Council has evolved over time, some of the challenges in the Smart Communities space he has faced in this time, before he discusses his experience working to embed Smart Communities in his organisation. He then shares with us some lessons learnt when measuring and monitoring Smart Community benefits, as well as some of the communication and community engagement challenges he has faced. We then discuss the importance of educating the community about the benefits of Smart Communities and some of the elements that contribute to dealing with change. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of using data to make better informed decisions. 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 Martin via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 another fascinating chat with Sandra Phillips. Sandra is a Shared Mobility Architect and Principal of Movmi, an award-winning women-owned agency focused on Shared Mobility. Movmi builds healthier communities co-creating innovative mobility solutions that increase transportation options, yet reduce dependency on private car ownership. I last spoke with Sandra in Episode 219 which was released in March of 2021 so it was great to catch up on what Sandra has been up to since. Sandra starts off by telling us about her background as a shared mobility architect and some of the work she has been doing with her company, what a Smart Community means to her, and we discuss how shared mobility can contribute to building more resilient and inclusive communities. We then discuss the importance of involving the community and the need for more creativity, when building Smart Communities, and Sandra tells us a bit more about some of the projects she has been working on. Sandra then shares some use cases with us of when on-demand and micro-transit has worked well for the community. We finish our talk discussing the emerging trends of smaller shared mobility hubs, an increase in more shared cargo bikes and similar styles of mobility, and lastly the exciting shift in mobility behaviour change Sandra has been seeing. 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 Sandra via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #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: •Calum Cameron from Episode 297 •Chris Manoski from Episode 298 •Dr. Mariela Alfonzo from Episode 299 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), education, collaboration and co-creation. One thing that all of our guests agree on is that Smart Communities is a journey that everyone should be a part of. Through education, collaboration and co-creation we can build communities that people really want, not just communities they need. As Mariela Alfonzo says, "Being able to have a platform [where] anybody can contribute and co-create, I think that's really where we're headed 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 me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 are so excited to bring you our very first podcast panel, which was recorded live at the beginning of June 2022. We were joined by Laura Baker from the City of Casey in Victoria and who is also the President of the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA). We had Nathaniel Mason from the City of Tea Tree Gully in South Australia, James Peet from Moreton Bay Regional Council in Queensland, and we also had Rory Brown from the Smart Places Program in the Cities and Active Transport Division in New South Wales. We proudly partnered with the Australian Smart Communities Association to bring you this very special episode, as we discuss how to embed Smart Communities. In this episode we begin with an Acknowledgement of Country, our panelists tell us about their backgrounds, and Laura also tells us a bit about what ASCA does as well as the Smart Casey launchpad. We then hear from James and he tells us about the asset scanning and Smart park projects Moreton Bay Council have been running. Rory then tells us a bit about the Smart Places strategy and some of the initiatives involved, we then hear about the City of Casey's Digital Equity Living Lab that has just been introduced, before Nathaniel tells us about the Connected Cities project the City of Tea Tree Gully has been working on. Rory then discusses some interesting projects, including the Smart planning portal, the 3D modeling work they have done with some Western Sydney councils, and the Smart irrigation work they have been managing at Sydney Olympic Park. We finish our panel chat discussing the key elements to embedding Smart Communities in our organisations. This is a really exciting episode, a little bit longer than normal and we really hope you get a lot out of it. 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 Laura via LinkedIn Connect with Nathaniel via LinkedIn Connect with James via LinkedIn Connect with Rory via email: smartplaces@planning.nsw.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Dr. Mariela Alfonzo. Mariela is the Founder and CEO of State of Place, an AI-driven, urban design data and predictive analytics software that helps citymakers create more thriving communities more effectively, cost-efficiently, and inclusively. In this episode Mariela begins by telling us about her background in Urban Planning, her focus on how the built environment shapes our perceptions and what a Smart Community means to her. Mariela then tells us how she began her startup, State of Place, a bit about what they do, and the range of clients Mariela works with. Mariela then shares with us a use case where her work has made a real impact and she explains how the built environment is actually formed in the world from a cultural context. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of addressing the issue of equality and how our environments can predetermine how well we live. 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 Mariela via LinkedIn, Twitter or email: mariela@stateofplace.co Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Chris Manoski. Chris is the Senior Coordinator for Place and Engagement at Cumberland City Council, and proudly born and raised in Western Sydney. In this episode we begin by Chris telling us about his background growing up in Western Sydney, his current role at Cumberland City Council, and his passion for making change for the better. Chris then tells us what inspired him to work in the social sector as well as his love for tech and the Smart City space, what a Smart Community means to him, and he discusses what he believes makes Smart Community strategies and programs successful. Chris then tells us a bit about the Cumberland City Council Smart Cities journey, some of the projects he has been working on as well as the changes he has seen in the space recently, before he discusses the key foundations required to enable smart furniture applications. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of business to business selling models through tech and open 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 Chris via LinkedIn or email: Christopher.Manoski@cumberland.nsw.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 another great conversation with Calum Cameron. Based in Estonia for the last 15 years, Calum is the CEO of Digital Path, a company that works to build responsive digital societies with governments, industry and entrepreneurs. Calum and I last spoke in 2020 in Episode 185, an episode so good we replayed it in our Summer Series of December 2021, so Calum is back to give us a full update. We begin by Calum telling us about his background in corporate IT, his passion for helping people to create change through digital transformation and innovation as well as giving people the tools and resources to do so, and we discuss some of the citizen lead initiatives I have seen in Australia helping to create change. We then discuss the societal shifts we have both seen in communities due to the pandemic, Calum tells us what a Smart Community means to him, before he discusses some of the shifts he has seen in the Smart Communities space since we last spoke in 2020. Calum then tells us about some of the effects the pandemic had on services in Estonia, and some of the exciting projects he has been working on. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of collaboration and the need for transparency to create trust in communities. 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 Calum via LinkedIn or email: calum@digitalpath.ee Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunityfriends! And hello to our listeners in Bangkok, Thailand, you are amongst this month's top city for episode downloads. 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: •Emily Bobis from Episode 291 •Dan Hendry from Episode 292 •Beate Kubitz from Episode 293 •Michael Milford from Episode 294 •And finally Crissy Ditmore from Episode 295 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around the shift in growth to suburban living, connectivity, data literacy, education and learning from each other. Every Smart Community has some great things to offer so sharing those great ideas, knowledge and solutions is so important. Not only learning from each other, but learning from the past and past mistakes should just be a part of the process. As Dan Hendry says, "Learning from each other, that's the smartest thing we can do." 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 another fascinating conversation with Crissy Ditmore. Crissy is Head of Public Policy, North America for Optibus. As a 15-year transportation industry veteran she focuses on mobility for all, so she is the perfect guest to wrap up our #mobilitymay! I spoke with Crissy in early 2020 so it is great to catch up on what she has been up to since then. In this episode Crissy begins by telling us about her background in public transportation, her passion for making transit work for people and addressing their needs, and we touch on Crissy's fab #AllAboutThatBus video she created. Crissy then tells us what a Smart Community means to her, she discusses some of the shifts she has seen happening in the transit mobility sector since we last spoke, before she tells us about her current visit to Australia and her talk on gender bias transit. We then discuss the difference in transit experiences for women and men, the importance of serving the transit needs of all community groups and the need to plan safe transit services. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of changing travel behaviours, and building a transport network to serve those changes. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Before we begin I want to share a content warning with you as a part of this episode contains conversation about sexual assault. It is around the 30 minute mark and goes for about 2 minutes so you can skip that section if you need, or give this episode a miss altogether if that's what's best for you. Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Crissy via Instagram: @fabcitycrissy, Twitter and LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful chat with Michael Milford. Michael is a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur, professor and joint director at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) centre for robotics. Michael conducts interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience and computer vision. I spoke with Michael in both 2018 and 2020 so I am super excited to welcome him back for #mobilitymay. In this episode Michael begins by telling us about his background as a professor and joint director at the QUT centre for robotics, his passion for technology specifically for autonomous vehicles, as well as education and Michael tells us what a Smart Community means to him. Michael then updates us on some of the projects he has been working on since last recording in 2020, including the two parts in the CHAD (Cooperative and Highly Automated Driving) project he has been leading, before he discusses some use cases where autonomous vehicles are an advantage and disadvantage to society. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of computer vision, perception, sensing and decision making in the Artificial Intelligence space, as well as having a more grounded approach to developing autonomous vehicles. 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 Michael via Twitter or email: michael.milford@qut.edu.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 another great chat with Beate Kubitz. Beate is a Transport Consultant and Future Mobility Researcher in the UK. I spoke to Beate in both 2020 and 2021, so I am very keen to have her back on the podcast for #mobilitymay to give us an update. In this episode Beate starts by telling us about her background as a transport consultant and her current work in mobility services, what inspired her to launch her sustainable delivery service using carbo bikes, and what a Smart Community means to her. We then discuss the importance of inclusivity in Smart Communities to enhance social mobility, as well as the benefits of both digitising transport and on demand transport, and we then discuss the impacts that changing mobility behaviour can have. Beate then talks more about her cargo bike project and how it has evolved since we last spoke, before she tells us about the work she has been doing with other towns in the UK to integrate cargo bikes. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of increased use of e-bikes particularly in public bike share, mobility as a service and more networking planning in the UK. 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 Beate via her Website, LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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! And welcome to our second #mobilitymay episode. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have fantastic talk with Dan Hendry. Dan strives toward promoting sustainable initiatives for the Limestone District School Board & Loyalist Township and involves himself in many community-based projects. He is a social innovator, facilitator, mentor, and communicator and focuses his energy and efforts on making Kingston in Ontario, Canada, a sustainable, liveable & Smart City. Dan starts off by telling us about his background in sustainability and his current work specifically in transit based projects, what a Smart Community is to Dan, and his passion for sustainability, innovation and leaving the world a better place. Dan then tells us about his amazing work teaching teens how to ride city transit and linking the school and transit systems together, and we then discuss the value of that education for people and the community. We then talk about the importance of normalising the concept of transit and different transit behaviours, before Dan explains how data helps him to educate in the projects he works on, as well as the web of benefits that data helps to visualise. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the climate change crisis and the need to take action on this issue. 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 Dan via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful talk with Emily Bobis. Emily is the co-founder of Compass IoT, a multi-award winning road intelligence startup that helps transport professionals improve road safety, transport, and infrastructure through connected vehicle data and the perfect guest for our first #mobilitymay episode. Emily begins by telling us about her background in startups, her passion for; innovation, mentorship, entrepreneurship and putting ideas into practice, before she tells us what a Smart Community means to her. Emily then shares a bit about her own startup Compass IoT and some of the exciting projects they have been working on, and explains what connected vehicle data is. Emily then dives a little deeper into how she got into startups and in particular how she started her own, and discusses some of the surprising things she has learned in her experiences working in startups and with data. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of digitising intelligent transport systems, building infrastructure to better support autonomous vehicles and the trend of push data. 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 Emily via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hi #smartcommunityfriends! And hello to our listeners in Auckland, New Zealand, you are amongst this month's top cities for episode downloads! 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: •Alex Gluhak from Episode 286 •Natalia Krysiak from Episode 287 •Fiona Barden from Episode 288 •And finally Elle Davidson from Episode 289 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around knowledge sharing, standardisation, inclusion, diversity and First Nations representation in Australian communities. We need to bring everyone along in the Smart Community journey to design communities for everybody, by everybody. As Natalia Krysiak says, "diverse voices in our communities is [what] should be next. I think many of the solutions we already have, it's just about bringing everybody together, bringing the perspectives together, and enabling empowerment of communities." As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Connect: Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Elle Davidson. Elle is a Balanggarra woman from the East Kimberley and descendant of Captain William Bligh, and describes herself as being caught in the cross-winds of Australia's history. With a passion to empower the voices of First Nations People, Elle combines her Town Planning and Indigenous Engagement qualifications to shape our places and spaces. In this episode, Elle begins with Acknowledgment of Country, before she tells us about her interesting and unique background as a town planner and current work with her consultancy, Zion Engagement and Planning, as well as her passion for bringing First Nations perspectives to planning. Elle then tells us what drew her into the town planning profession, what a Smart Community means to her, then discusses some of the projects she has been working on including a career highlight working on the Western Sydney aerotropolis project. We then discuss the importance of asking questions and having an open minded approach when working on projects. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of First Nations knowledge and the value it can add to projects. 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 Elle via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 delightful chat with Fiona Barden. Fiona works with Coffs Harbour City Council, leading the Industry and Destination Development section, which looks after the economic development of the region and fosters tourism attraction and visitation. In this episode, Fiona begins by telling us about her interesting and varied background, her passion for business and in particular looking at economic viability for regions, and discusses some of Coffs Harbour's current top sectors and industries. Fiona then tells us what a Smart Community means to her, a few of the changes she has seen in her local community in the recent years, and then discusses a few of the projects she has been working on with the council. Fiona then talks about the councils approach to the Covid-19 pandemic and how this helped the community, as well as the councils Economic Development Strategy and their approach to digital economy. We finish our chat discussing several emerging trends including; long term recovery and resilience after natural disaster events, meaningful sustainable development, and lastly how data is used and how it is useful for people in our communities. 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 Fiona via email: fiona.barden@chcc.nsw.gov.au or via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Natalia Krysiak, a practicing architect at Hayball and the founder of Cities for Play. Natalia specialises in the design of child-oriented learning and play environments, and her area of research focuses on child-friendly cities and how the built environment can contribute to the health and wellbeing of children. In this episode, Natalia begins by telling us about her background in architecture, what inspired her to begin her organisation Cities for Play, and what a Smart Community means to her. Natalia then shares how she came to work in the Smart Communities space, before she discusses the importance of accommodating children's needs when designing and planning our built environments, as well as the importance of the physical and digital combinations in our communities. Natalia then shares with us some of her Churchill Fellow experiences, before discussing some examples she has seen in other countries of how children get to and from school. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of creating placemaking through play and creating play mapping in communities, as well as the benefits this has on our society. 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 Natalia via Instagram: @citiesforplay Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 an excellent conversation with Alex Gluhak. Alex is an experienced technology leader and evangelist for Internet of Things (IoT) technology and its application to Smart Cities and Communities. He is also the CEO and Founder at Urban Data Collective, who's mission is to democratize access to real-time urban data. In this episode Alex begins by telling us about his background as a telecoms engineer in Germany, his passion for travel and working with people from different cultures, before sharing a bit about his startup Urban Data Collective. Alex then shares what a Smart Community means to him, why he believes data to be so important in Smart Communities and how it affects decision making, before he tells us a bit about some of his favourite projects he has been working on. Alex then discusses some use cases of IoT's used in some of his projects, and the technology component that is involved in opening up data sets, and we discuss the importance of up-skilling people to allow for new ways of doing things in our workforces. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of more self-sufficient cities. 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 Alex via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hello #smartcommunityfriends, and hello to our listeners in Brussels, you are amongst this month's top city for episode downloads. 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: •Chelsea Collier from Episode 280 •Hannah Beder from Episode 281 •Greg Lindsay from Episode 282 •Dustin Haisler from Episode 283 •And finally Jennifer Sanders from Episode 284 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around inclusivity, knowledge sharing, better definitions and frameworks in Smart Communities and talent retention. Putting people at the forefront of Smart Communities really highlights the needs of the community and how we can do things better. Making communities more inclusive, accessible and sharing knowledge will help shift and change our Smart Communities to more human centered and holistic environments. We also need to have the ability to see things differently in order to build better solutions and not miss any opportunities. As Chelsea Collier says, "when we get too 'end in mind' focused, we miss the opportunity for the magic". 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful chat with Jennifer Sanders, who you may remember from episode 170 that was released in May of 2020. Jennifer is the Co-Founder and Executive Director at the Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA), a public-private partnership dedicated to supporting the design and execution of a Smart Cities plan for Dallas. In this episode, Jennifer starts by telling us about her background in communications and change management, her passion for Dallas and her focus to make change locally, before she tells us what a Smart Community means to her. Jennifer then shares with us what she has been working on since we last spoke in 2020 and what changes she has seen in the Smart Communities space since then, before discussing how she collaborates across state and county and some of her learnings from these partnerships. Jennifer then shares with us some of the interesting projects she has been working on, and we discuss the digital divide, and how we can overcome this in our communities. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of data privacy and protection policy approaches, and the importance of designing and embedding best practices into processes from the beginning. 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 Jennifer via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 talk with Dustin Haisler. Dustin is the Chief Innovation Officer for e.Republic, a media and research company focused exclusively on state and local government. Dustin is also an Eisenhower Fellow and Program Faculty for the Certified Public Management Program at Texas State University. In this episode, Dustin starts by telling us about his background in banking, how he ended up working in Government to then startups, and his passion for Government and in particular cities. Dustin then shares with us what a Smart Community is to him, a bit about e.Republic and what they do, and we discuss the importance of being able to work together and partner with governments, before Dustin shares with us some of his favourite projects he has been working on. Dustin then shares some of his experiences connecting different government agencies together and we discuss the importance of knowledge sharing and collaboration. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of digital equity and inclusion, and decentralised identity. 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 Dustin via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Greg Lindsay. Greg is a journalist, urbanist, futurist and speaker and senior fellow for Applied Research and Foresight in New Cities in Montreal, Canada. In this episode Greg begins by telling us about his background in journalism and covering the dot com bubble 20 years ago, how he dates the beginning of Smart Cities and shares with us his journey to working in the Smart Cities space. Greg then shares with us what a Smart Community is to him, we discuss in length some of the common and most effective Smart Community themes we find help build better communities, and Greg then shares with us a bit about some of the projects he has been working on. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of augmented reality and what this can potentially mean for our communities. 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 Greg via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 really great conversation with Hannah Beder. Hannah is a technology lead, educator, and NSW Young Woman of the Year 2020. Hannah spends her time developing technology curriculums and education products which promote entrepreneurship, encourage creative expression through technology, and prepare young people for the future of work. In this episode Hannah starts by telling us about her background in software engineering, her current work as a technology educator, and her passion for women in tech. Hannah then shares with us how she came to be a software engineer and we discuss the importance of changing the narrative around STEM conversations, so young people feel more confident to pursue STEM careers. Hannah then shares a bit about some of the projects she has been working on, before she discusses some of the factors she sees deterring women from STEM careers, and we talk about the importance of creative flexibility in Smart Communities. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of how people are starting to discover what really matters to them and how they impact the world through their work. 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 Hannah via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Chelsea Collier, the founder of Digi.City, a forum for supporting the co-creation of smart(er) cities and more connected communities. Now you may remember Chelsea from her last episode way back in 2018 in episode 23, and we are so excited to have her back on the podcast. Chelsea starts off by telling us about her background and her current work running her online forum Digi.City, her passion for tech and bringing government, public sectors, industry and academia together, and Chelsea tells us how she got into the Smart Communities space. Chelsea then tells us how she started her consultancy Digi.City before telling us what a Smart Community means to her. We then discuss the Smart Community definition and how the definition is quite simple yet the Smart Community applications are far more complex to implement, before Chelsea tells us what she has been up to since we last recorded in 2018. Chelsea then tells us a bit about some of the key projects she has been working on and we discuss the importance of bringing councils together and co-creation and collaboration with the community. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of data visualisation and using data to make better decisions for our communities. 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 Chelsea via Digi.City, email: chelsea@digi.city or LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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! And hello to our listeners in Helsinki, Finland, you are amongst this month's top city for episode downloads! 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: •Simon Hunter from Episode 265 •Kris Libunao from Episode 274 •Raymond Sun and Susannah Wilkinson from Episode 276 •Miho Tanaka from Episode 277 •And finally Emily Yates from Episode 278 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around digitisation, virtual and augmented reality and how these can assist with community engagement and creating more organised communities. Making processes more efficient, accessible and exciting helps build confidence in the community and with the right tools creates better engagement. When the community is better engaged their pain points are voiced and better understood. As Kris Libunao says, "Once communities are well organised, they will be more engaged, they will be more confident in terms of really voicing their opinions out." 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 Emily Yates who is the Smart City Director for the City of Philadelphia. Emily begins by telling us about her varied background that began in Landscape Architecture to how she ended up working in Smart Cities with the City of Philadelphia, before Emily explains what a Smart Community means to her. Emily then discusses some of the differences in Smart City concepts between Europe and the US, we discuss the importance of flexibility and agility in order to embrace Smart Community concepts, before Emily shares with us a bit about some of the projects the City of Philadelphia have been working on. Emily then discusses the City of Philadelphia's approach to Smart City projects and Emily shares a little bit more about one of her favourite current projects. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of how tech can assist our ageing societies and the importance of investing in those technologies now. 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 Emily via email: emily.yates@phila.gov, LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 lovely conversation with Miho Tanaka. Miho is the Startup Visa Lead & Director of Startup Welcome Service in Shibuya, Japan. Miho starts by telling us about her background and her passion for helping startups in Japan. She then tells us about the growth of investment in Japan, what a Smart Community is to her, a bit about the work she does with Startup Welcome Service, before she discusses the focus on Smart Cities in Japan. Miho then shares with us the post Covid shift for communities and what that looks like in Japan as well as the key considerations startups need to know to enter the Japanese market. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of silver tech for the ageing society in Japan. As always, we hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Miho via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Raymond Sun and Susannah Wilkinson. Ray is a solicitor at Herbert Smith Freehills, specialising in technology, media and telecommunications and privacy law. Susannah is the Digital Law Lead - Australia & Asia at the same firm, leading the development of Smart Legal Contracts and the provision of digital law solutions in conjunction with the development of the Australian National Blockchain. We start off by talking about Ray and Susannah's backgrounds in law and their current work looking at how laws are able to adapt to the new issues of emerging technology. Ray then tells us about his passion for technology and AI, and Susannah, her passion for improving digitised processes and how that involves the law, before they tell us what a Smart Community means to them. We then discuss the importance of data in Smart Communities, the increased use of data and risks associated and therefore the importance of having legal frameworks in place. We then discuss how data leads to Smart Communities and emerging technologies. Ray and Susannah then share with us a bit about some of the projects they have been working on recently and we finish our chat discussing several emerging trends including; lawyers roles in Smart Communities and forward looking legislation, digital twin representation and accountability in the 'real world', more flexible and adaptable infrastructure projects, shifts in privacy laws and finally digital identity. 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 Susannah via HSF Digital Law Group Website Connect with Raymond via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to this very special bonus episode of the Smart Community Podcast, live from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. I am joined by previous guest and very good friend of the show, Dr. Jonathan Reichental. 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 to 2022. This is our first episode of new content in 2022 and I am absolutely so excited to bring a very special guest back onto the podcast to start us off! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great conversation with Kris Libunao, the Executive Director and Chief Sustainability Officer of SmartCT, improving the way Smart Cities and digital transformation are being developed in the Philippines and developing countries. You might remember Kris from back in episode 191 and we are so happy to have her back on the show to catch up on what she has been up to since we last spoke in 2020. Kris starts by telling us about her background in urban planning, policy research, project management and sustainability, she tells us about her professional and personal passions and what sparked her interest in Smart Communities. Kris then tells us what a Smart Community means to her, what she has been doing in developing countries to build Smart Communities and discusses the key gaps in operationalising and sustaining Smart Communities in developing countries. Kris then gives us an update about what she has been up to since 2020, what her 2022 focus is and she discusses how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected her projects. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science, and the importance of educating the public about data ethics. 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 Kris via LinkedIn, email kris@smartct.org or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Katya Petrikevich from Episode 231 which was released in May of this year. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great conversation with Katya, the Co Founder and International Director of the two companies; Participation Factory a consultancy that mainstreams participation and data-driven approaches into governance and process design, and Civic Port, a database helping connect cities, towns, and other governing institutions with the Civic Tech companies. We begin our discussion talking about Katya's background, her passion for human rights, specifically women's rights and inclusivity and Katya tells us what a Smart Community is to her. Katya then shares with us her insights into the upward trend of participation, community engagement and inclusivity. We discuss Civic Technology as a tool for dialogue and communication with the community before Katya shares with us the projects her two companies are currently working on. We finish our conversation talking about the importance of systematic and continuous participation with communities. Katya tells us about the 'City Coordinators of Prague' project and finally we discuss the growth of the emerging trends of 'living data', participation and Civic Tech. I also have an update from Katya, since the time of the recording, she has been engaged in various projects in the Czech Republic and abroad including supporting the delivery of the Conference on the Future of Europe as a facilitator of the Panel "Stronger Economy, Social Justice, Jobs, Youth, Sport, Culture and Education, and Digital Transformation." In addition to this, she is currently serving as a member of a Civic Tech Review Committee organized by People Powered. Her work as its member supports the development of the Digital Participation Platforms Guide and provides assessment to the best Digital Participation Platforms. She has also presented at several events and provided expertise on the topics of Public Participation, Community Engagement, and Citizen Data including at Tech Camp Chile and Local Labs 2021. We will be sure to get Katya back on the show in future for a full update on what she has been up to and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Katya via LinkedIn or email katya@participationfactory.com Connect with me via email:...

Hi #smartcommunity friends! Welcome back to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Imogen Schifferle, from way back in episode 189, which was released in September of 2020. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant conversation with Imogen, the Regional Partnerships Innovation Coordinator at Albury City and Wodonga City Councils. Now, in case you don't know because you're not from Australia, Albury and Wodonga are twin Australian cities located on either side of the Murray River and the state border between Victoria and New South Wales. The twin cities are a real hub for the region, and have been heavily impacted by the state border closures and lockdowns during the pandemic. So in this episode, Imogen first tells us about her background in digital technologies, particularly mobile technologies, as she's worked for both Telstra and Samsung, and how she's now working in Local Government. We discuss the differences in drivers and attitude between private companies and public service, as well as the differences in Smart Community ideas between regional and urban environments. She then tells us about the Rural Smart Community Strategy she's been working on, and how it's been informed by the needs of the community and also impacted by the bushfires from late 2019 and early 2020 that ravaged many parts of Australia. Imogen tells us about the 5 themes or initiatives that underpin the strategy and what it was like to try to bring together one strategy for two cities, spanning two states, encompassing 17 Local Government areas and a lot of different needs. Of course we finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of communities and individuals demanding more from their local governments and organisations, as well as some of Imogen's favourite Smart Community resources. I also have an update from Imogen, since the time of recording, she has been involved in several projects including the implementation of ground sensors to improve digital literacy and make places more functional. Also, the Council's have partnered in research to deliver the first LG data engine that will unify two states through insights and author a robust Open Data Policy. Lastly, the Council's have been collaborating with private sector partners in off grid data centres and NBN to provide high speed, reliable public Wi-Fi to regional towns in North East Victoria. We will be sure to get Imogen back on the show in future to get a full update about what she has been up to and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Imogen on LinkedIn or Instagram @imcheee Find out more about Albury-Wodonga at the Two Cities, One Community website at https://www.alburywodonga.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on<a...

Hi #smartcommunity friends! Welcome back to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Paolo Galelli, from way back in episode 148, which was released in December of 2019. In this episode, I have a great chat with Paolo, who at the time of recording was a Building Energy Efficiency Engineer at BuildTech s.r.l., and is now a Project and Construction Manager at ​​Comune di Sestri Levante and Research fellow at the University of Genoa in Italy. Paolo shares with us what sparked his interest in Smart Community concepts and why he feels they are so important, especially for engaging with young people. Paolo tells us about how he sees Italy embracing Smart concepts, and the reason he thinks his town, Sestri Levante, is a great example of a Smart Community. We then discuss the ways that proactive participatory approaches to engagement are even more important in small and regional towns than in metro areas. Paolo tells us about the app he is working on called Nassa that helps engage young people and how they've integrated across governments and disciplines. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the different and often technologically-driven ways young people engage in community and civic life, and how Paolo and his team have used that to their advantage. This episode was part of my spotlight on the regions in December, so we hope you enjoy this perspective from a regional town in Italy. We will be sure to get Paolo back on the show in future for a full update about what he has been up to since we recorded this episode and how our thinking has progressed since our conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Paolo on LinkedIn or via email paologalelli@gmail.com Connect with Nassa Sestri on Instagram @nassa_sestri , Facebook @nassasestri or LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @SmartCommHQ The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunity friends! Welcome back to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Sean Audain from way back in episode 124, which was released in August of 2019. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I had a great chat with Sean, the City Innovation Lead at Wellington City Council in New Zealand. Sean and I discuss the way the public service role of government shapes how decisions are made, and that this comes with both opportunities and challenges for the government that can differ significantly from the responsibilities and operations of private companies. Sean then tells us how he sees New Zealand embracing Smart concepts, and a bit about the digital twin projects that he is working on in Wellington. We talk about the benefits of using digital twin technology and how it's being used to build a new call centre and a new library. We finish our conversation discussing the need for indigenous voices in the Smart Cities discourse and the ways different worldviews shape our Smart Communities. We will be sure to get Sean back on the show in future to get a full update about what he has been up to since we recorded this episode and also to how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Sean via LinkedIn or on Twitter @sean_audain Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Zaheer Allam, from way back in episode 180, which was released in July of 2020. In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great conversation with Urban Strategist Zaheer Allam. You might remember I spoke with Zaheer earlier in 2020 in Episode 158 and when COVID-19 broke out I knew I wanted to catch up with him again. So this podcast episode is an audio from the YouTube series I did catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic and we recorded this chat on the 4th of May 2020. In this conversation, Zaheer tells us what the situation is like in Mauritius at the time of recording, what's changed such as working from home, flexible work options in general and the disruptions for Zaheer personally. We cover a big range of things all along the themes of how COVID has impacted every industry and brought to the forefront a lot of Smart concepts, such as the importance of data, digital literacy, community engagement and cross-disciplinary approaches. Zaheer tells us why systems thinking is so important in Smart Communities, always but now especially as we move into a post-COVID world. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a digital economy, of localising supply chains, investing in resilient infrastructure and the democratisation of data. We finish our chat discussing the ways Smart Cities and Communities, including the 15 minute city concept, can help us build more sustainable, resilient, human-centred places to work, live and play. I also have an update from Zaheer, he says he has been involved in a research project on Smart Cities and Green New Deals. He has also had a few papers published on those themes, and is currently collaborating with the Sorbonne University (France) on the theme of '15-Minute Cities'. We'll be sure to get Zaheer back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Zaheer on LinkedIn and find him on Facebook Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Jennifer Sanders from Episode 170 which was recorded pre Covid-19 Pandemic, in February of 2020. In this episode of the Smart Community podcast I have a great conversation with Jennifer Sanders, the Co-Founder and Executive Director at the Dallas Innovation Alliance or DIA as she refers to it a lot in this episode. Jennifer tells us about the DIA, how it came to be and the needs-based, neighbourhood-centric approach that they take. We cover the importance of educating and empowering citizens, especially young people and people from underserved neighbourhoods, on how they can engage with their communities and Jennifer shares a great story about the benefits of giving kids a seat at the table when discussing solutions to community problems. We discuss how Dallas is embracing the Smart City concept and the real impacts and benefits of the openness, transparency and knowledge-sharing that goes on between individuals and organisations in the Smart City space. Jennifer tells us about the projects she's working on with the DIA, including their focus on equity, digital inclusion and having a regional focus through the North Texas Innovation Alliance. We have a great chat about how the regional approach is the natural next step from the city-centric focus and how it helps with efficiencies and economies of scale for smaller towns with fewer resources. Now the DIA has dozens of partner organisations from all sectors and Jennifer tells us about how they approach integration and collaboration with so many stakeholders. We finish our chat talking about the emerging trends of data privacy and ownership in public data-driven projects, and we have an interesting chat about telemedicine too. As I mentioned previously, this episode was recorded before Covid-19 brought travel restrictions and lockdowns to the world and so it will be interesting to see what the innovations in that space are once we get through this pandemic. We will be sure to get Jennifer back on the show in future for a full update about what she has been up to and how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Jennifer on LinkedIn or Twitter @dallassmartcity Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Calum Cameron, from way back in episode 185 which was released in August of 2020. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a really interesting conversation with Calum, an Aussie based in Estonia, which is the world's first digital society and Europe's favourite startup ecosystem. Responding to the COVID-19 lockdown in Estonia he helped trigger the Hack the Crisis movement and was an organiser of The Global Hackathon which combined, connected more than 250k people from over 100 countries to develop and implement immediate solutions to the crises, which we talk about in this episode. We start by discussing Calum's background in IT helping the financial services digitalise, and how he came to be in Estonia. Calum then shares with us a history of Estonia, why they focused heavily on digitalisation in the 1990s, plus some of the interesting ways that manifests, like their digital citizen or e-residency program. Calum tells us how he got into this Smart Community space and why a diverse cross section from society is so important in getting different perspectives and different skill sets to best leverage the technology that's out there to solve community problems. We talk about how Smart concepts are understood by the general public in Estonia, including how data sharing works between agencies to make renewing your drivers licence a smooth process. Calum and I talk about the importance of trust and the social license to operate in digital societies, and how both public and private sectors in Estonia have intentionally invested in the affordability and reliability of digital infrastructure, as well as dedicated digital education and engagement programs to improve digital literacy in the whole population. We finish our chat discussing the opportunities and challenges of e-learning and digital collaboration, including his work with the recent digital hackathons, plus Calum's favourite resources in the Smart Community space. At one point we also mention Smart Community festivals and I say in the interview that I discussed it with Martin Tomitsch in his episode but no, it was actually Heath Raftery who I spoke to in Episode 113 about Smart Regions, so we've linked all those episodes up in the show notes too. We'll be sure to get Calum back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Calum on LinkedIn or via calum@digitalpath.ee Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. We're taking a little break from new content over The Australian summer holidays, but with more than 260 episodes in the bank, we've got plenty for you to catch up on. During this Summer Series, we'll be sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. And this week, i'm very excited to share with you a very powerful conversation I had with Dr. Emma Lee from episode 211, and actually we started 2021 off with this episode. Emma is a trawlwulwuy woman of tebrakunna country in north east Tasmania, and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology. Her research fields over the last 25 years have focused on Indigenous affairs, land and sea management, policy and governance of Australian regulatory environments. In this episode Emma tells us about her background in Indigenous archeology and land management, and passion for First Nations social impact and regional development. I flip the script a little bit from our usual question order and in this episode we start with discussing the emerging trend of Smart Country that people definitely aren't talking about enough. Emma explains what country is and the connection to country that First Nations people have, some of the things we can learn from Smart Country like fire management, a broader concept of conservation, and a reciprocal relationship with the land and environment. Emma shares with us the power of language and the way it has been and is used to position Indigenous and First Nations ways of knowing as less than the coloniser's knowledge, the decolonising and grieving work we all need to be doing, and the balance we need to strike between the global focus that is prioritised in academia and our modern world, with the deep local knowledge that is so important to Smart Country and Community. Emma tells us how this played out in her work with the Reset the Relationship Government Strategy that she helped create, and the doors that were opened and the shift that was created through a statement of love amongst the hate. We then touch on how social media creates and fuels division and how important inclusion is in our Smart Communities, as well as the concept of individual responsibility within a community and the big mindset shift that is for so many of us. We finish our chat discussing where to next for Smart Country and Smart Communities. Since the recording of the episode back in 2020, Emma has been busier than ever. She has moved homes, began a part time job in government whilst moving to part time with Swinburne University, there's also a big Treaty document tabled in parliament that she has been involved in. Amongst this and many other things, Emma has also published two articles in The Age, the first article is an in-depth profile of her and her work and the second an Opinion Piece on Indigenous Voice, both are exceptional reads that really showcase Emma's passion and the incredible work she does. We'll be sure to invite Emma back on the show in the future for a full update about what she's been up to. But in the meantime, 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 Emma via email ejlee@swin.edu.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or<a...

Hi #smartcommunity friends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a fabulous conversation with Simon Hunter, the Executive Director of Strategy and Innovation, at the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE). This group is leading the implementation of the NSW Smart Places Strategy to embed Smart Cities into the planning or urban and regional areas across NSW. We have a great talk about what New South Wales is up to in regards to Smart Communities and Smart Places Initiatives, and the exciting future ahead. In this episode, Simon tells us about his background in transport and infrastructure, mainly in State Government, and what a Smart Community is to him. Simon shares with us the importance of the term 'Smart Places' and its use when discussing this space, as well as how he got into this space and how he has driven this concept over time with DPIE and in his other roles. We talk about the polarising risks associated with data and privacy protection and how to balance them, before Simon tells us about the Smart Places Acceleration Program and what is involved, as well as the benefits realisation of the program. We then discuss the importance of efficiency and value of time and how that contributes to people's quality of life, as well as the value that remote working and remote staff can bring to an organisation. We finish our chat with Simon telling us what is happening over the next few years with his work and what he is most excited about. Now this is the last episode for the year before we go into our Summer series, so 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 Simon via LinkedIn or via email: Simon.Hunter@planning.nsw.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hello #smartcommunityfriends and hello to our listeners in Israel, you are amongst this month's top Countries for most episode downloads. 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: •Emma Weston from Episode 260 •Ghazaleh Ghoreishi from Episode 261 •Nicci Rossouw from Episode 262 •And finally Laila Al Hadhrami from Episode 263 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around fluidity between rural and urban areas, embracing the differences in our rural communities, placing people at the centre of our communities and increasing the quality of life for people. More diversity and fluidity in communities allows for better connection between rural and urban areas, starting these conversations now about bridging the gaps between the two is so important. We also don't want to see any communities miss opportunities to improve the quality of life for people, and placing people at the centre of Smart Communities to make decisions about what they need to improve their quality of life is crucial. As Emma Weston says, "When it comes to rural and regional, what we don't want is, this re-ignition that Covid has given to our rural and regional areas to be a passing blip, we want to be able to see this as a launching pad to an integration point between urban and rural." 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 Laila Al Hadhrami. Laila is the Smart Cities Development Manager at the National Energy Centre in Oman and ready to talk about her favourite topic, Smart Cities. Laila begins by telling us about her background and her passion for the digital world and Smart Cities, how sustainability drew her into the Smart Communities space and we discuss the importance of knowledge sharing in Smart Communities. Laila then shares with us how she is working to build Smart Communities in Oman, what a Smart Community is to her and we discuss the importance of investing in people's skills and empowering people. Laila then tells us about her current work leading Smart City projects at the National Energy Centre, before she discusses how Oman has embraced the Smart Community concept and its evolution over the last 5 years. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of serving the basic needs first in communities before looking to the future, and the changes the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to our working and online learning lives. 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 Laila via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 fabulous chat with Nicci Rossouw who is the CEO and founder of Exaptec, a robotics company that specialises in telepresence, social and educational robots. Nicci starts off by telling us about her professional background in sales and her passion for robotics, she tells us what a Smart Community is to her before she tells us how she got into the robotics space. Nicci then tells us a bit more about her company and the work they do as well as her Podcast, 'Let's Talk Robotics' and how she showcases and celebrates people and their businesses in the robotics and AI space. We discuss the value in different expertise and the importance of harnessing those expertise in Smart Communities before we discuss how automation can enhance businesses and how technology is changing our society. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of AI and robotics and the positive impacts they are having on 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 Nicci via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Ghazaleh Sadat Ghoreishi. Ghazaleh is currently an urban planner and PhD researcher of urban planning at the university of Tehran, Iran. Ghazaleh starts by telling us about her background in Geomatics engineering and surveying, her transition into urban planning and her current work as a PhD scholar at the University of Tehran. She then tells us what sparked her interest in the Smart Communities space, her fascination for how technology can change peoples lives, what a Smart Community is to her and we then discuss how Iran has embraced the Smart Community concept. We talk about the importance of community intelligence in Smart Communities before Ghazaleh tells us about some of the projects she has been working on recently. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of autonomous technology and how it can affect people's lives, and the co-creation of cities by empowering citizens more. 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 Ghazaleh via LinkedIn or via email: gh.ghorashi@gmail.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 brilliant conversation with Emma Weston. Emma is the CEO and co-founder of AgriDigital, which is a company dedicated to digitizing and growing grain supply chains and joining us from her own farm in NSW. Emma tells us about her background in Law and how that began her journey into the grain industry to now her current work with her company AgriDigital before she tells us what a Smart Community is to her. We then discuss the importance of accessibility in communities and how Smart Communities facilitates that as well as the connectedness Smart Communities bring and what opportunities the Covid-19 pandemic has brought for rural and regional communities. Emma then dives a little deeper into her company sharing with us what they do, how they work to create more efficiency and value through digital supply chains and how that creates better sustainability and investment in the agricultural space. We finish our chat talking about the emerging trends of virtual transactions, more investment in knowledge based work and the potential impacts of Telehealth on our 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 Emma via Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital

Hello #smartcommunityfriends and congratulations to our listeners in Gibraltar, you are amongst the month's top city for most episode downloads. 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: •Saskia Beer from Episode 255 •Islam Bouzguenda from Episode 256 •Renato De Castro from Episode 257 •And finally Jess Coldrey from Episode 258 Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 talk with Jess Coldrey about how art can shape the future of Smart Communities. Jess is a human geographer and creative technology artist and through her work, aims to harness the under-utilised potential of infrastructure to address social and environmental needs. Jess tells us about her varied and interesting background, her studies in Visual Arts and Human Geography, her current work and latest venture heading to England to study humanitarian engineering, before telling us about her passion for futurism and how societies progress in a socially different way. Jess then discusses how her work fits into the Smart Communities space, how she has used her creative and collaborative skills in past projects to bring in new ways of thinking and ideas, how her training has helped give a different perspective and what a Smart Community is to her. Jess then shares with us some of the projects she has been working on as well as some of her achievements before we discuss how art can trigger emotional responses allowing people to think differently and boldly about the future of communities, how art galleries and libraries could potentially be the hub of communities and the value that could bring. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the post Covid world and the different requirements communities will need in future. As always, we hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Jess via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 chat with Renato De Castro a Smart City Expert and author of the book City SmartUp: a new era of smarter cities. He is currently located in the Middle East region, working as a Smart City Senior Advisor at RMA, advising local government entities and developers in Smart City planning. Renato tells us about his background in and passion for Smart Cities, the changes Renato has noticed in this space since 2009, we discuss the natural process of Smart Cities before Renato tells us what a Smart Community is to him. Renato then tells us about the task force he helped start with his children's school and other parents which set up their region for digital schooling when the Covid-19 pandemic hit Italy, and the personal benefit he got from this experience as well as the benefit to his region and community. We then discuss the importance of resilience in communities especially since the Covid-19 pandemic and Renato tells us all about his dissertation and guide to building Smart Cities through 'SmartUp' and the 4 p's; people, public, private and partnerships. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of localisation in our communities, more investments and efforts into tech and more focus on human-centric communities. As always, we hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Renato via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Islam Bouzguenda, a lecturer at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Islam starts by telling us about her background as an architect, her masters in Smart Cities specialising in community participation and her current work at the University of Twente relating to Smart City governance. Islam then discusses what a Smart Community is to her, before telling us a bit more about her PHD and some findings from her research and how using conventional tools of participation in communities work better to serve their needs. Islam then tells us about the sustainability project she has been working on, some of the sustainability tools she has used, some of the topics she lectures and we discuss the difference between 'smart' governance and traditional governance as well as the changes Islam has seen since entering the Smart Cities space in 2015. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of social intelligence 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 Islam via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful chat with Saskia Beer. Saskia is an Amsterdam based entrepreneur and founder/director of Transformcity, who help cities and real estate companies around the world with their urban processes. Saskia tells us about her background as an architect, and her transition into urban development after losing her job during the financial crisis. She tells us about her passion for cities and fascination of how cities work together, what a Smart Community is to her and we discuss the importance of diversity in Smart Communities to solve issues. Saskia then tells us how she came to work in the Smart Communities space, how her current work links in with Smart Communities, the importance of collectivity in communities and the need to be adaptable. Saskia then shares with us some of the projects she has been working on split between her consultancy work and creating her online course before telling us about her online tool that helps build and optimise urban strategies. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of a more holistic approach to problem solving in communities. As always, we hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Saskia via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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: •Niels Wouters from Episode 249 •Jonathan Reichental & Brett Hoffstadt from Episode 251 •Jack Barton from Episode 252 •And finally Kylie Legge from Episode 253 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around the self governance of data, building more resilient and flexible communities and systems thinking for problem solving. It is more important than ever for communities to be more resilient and have the ability to identify potential risks in society in order to build these resilient communities. Smart Communities is about making people's lives better and it is important to have a holistic approach to connecting communities and systems thinking to solve problems aiming for the common good of society. As Jonathan Reichental says, "I think we've got to be in a position now where we actually identify the potential risks in our society. And we make plans, and we test those plans." 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 wonderful conversation with Kylie Legge. Kylie is the founder of Place Score which is an organisation offering human-centric data and you may remember Kylie from her previous episode all the way back in episode 15. Kylie tells us about her background in architecture originally and her current work in Place Making, her passion for human-centric cities and making places better for people, what a Smart Community is to her before we discuss the importance of inclusion and human-centric focus in Smart Communities. We then discuss some of the learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic, Kylie tells us about her company Place Score and the liveability census they are currently running before we discuss the value of data and how it can be used to better the community. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the positive and potential challenges of technology, the need for more contextualised data and to be more strategic about the use of data. 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 Kylie via LinkedIn or the PlaceScore website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 welcome back Jack Barton and we have a great chat about what he has been up to since he was last a guest on the podcast back in 2018. Jack starts by telling us about his background in architecture, his passion for developing the digital representations of reality and how this can help make cities better places, before telling us about his current work managing the Geospatial Research, Innovation and Development Lab at the University of NSW. Jack shares with us what a Smart Community is to him, we discuss some of the impacts the Covid-19 pandemic has had on our communities and jobs and how we can now normalise digital connections more. Jack shares with us his journey into the Smart Communities space, some of the projects he is currently working on, the importance for basic operational standards in the digital twin space and he discusses the benefits of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and how it can be used in communities. We finish our chat discussing further the emerging trends of LIDAR and its exciting future. 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 Jack via email, Twitter or LinkedIn Connect with GRID_UNSW via Twitter, LinkedIn or visit their website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 had the pleasure of speaking with both Jonathan Reichental and Brett Hoffstadt, the co-authors of their new book, Exploring Smart Cities Activity Book for Kids. Jonathan is currently the founder of advisory, investment, and education firm, Human Future, and also creates online education for LinkedIn Learning. He has written two books on the future of cities: Smart Cities for Dummies and of course Exploring Smart Cities Activity Book for Kids. Brett Hoffstadt has a unique fusion of a technical and creative background with achievements in aeronautical engineering, project management, corporate innovation initiatives, and music composing. We talk about Brett and Jonathan's backgrounds in aerospace engineering and tech respectively, Brett's passion for encouraging people into STEM careers, Jonathan's passion for Smart Cities and how the two came to meet to co-author their book. Brett and Jonathan tell us what a Smart Community is to them, we discuss the importance of big and bold ideas in the Smart Communities space and how important children are to contribute to driving change in this space. Brett and Jonathan then give us an overview of their book and how children can benefit from it, before sharing some narratives from the book. We then discuss the importance of creating 'active citizens' at an early age by teaching children about cities and communities, how they can contribute to making communities smart and how teachers may benefit from their book as a resource to teach their students. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the use of drones and self-driving cars in our communities and more transparency around product and service development in cities. 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 Brett via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with Jonathan via LinkedIn or Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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, host Zoe Eather is back in the hot seat! In celebration of this being episode 250, Zoe and producer Ellen Ronalds Keene sat down for a chat where she answers questions from you, the audience of the Smart Community Podcast. We can't believe we're at 250 episodes and now over 128,000 downloads. It's been just over 3 years of the show and thank you so much for all of you tuning in! Zoe answers 11 questions today from the many that were sent through via LinkedIn. Thank you to those of you who submitted questions! 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 I have a fascinating talk with Niels Wouters. Niels is a designer and researcher with a particular interest in identifying architectural qualities and engagement opportunities afforded by digital media in public space. Niels is currently Head of Research for Science Gallery Melbourne, and Research Fellow in the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. Firstly Niels tells us about his varied background in computer science and architecture, his PHD focused on human computer interaction and his current work in the Smart Cities/Smart Digital ethics space. He tells us how he came to work in the space of ethics, technology and interaction in public spaces, the importance of quick and agile responses to ethical issues before sharing with us what a Smart Community is to him. Niels then tells us all about the Biometric Mirror project he has been working on and what is involved, we discuss the potential risk and biases associated with facial recognition systems, before Niels tells us about the project, Decolonising the Urban Screen, he has been working on. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of less facial recognition systems being used in some countries and more use in other countries and the self governance of data. 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 Niels via Twitter or LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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: •Jacqueline Nagle from Episode 247 •Dawid Jacobs from Episode 246 •Michael Healy from Episode 244 •And finally Dr. Kelly Turner from Episode 245 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around the current population shift for regional communities, better collaboration and integration, interconnectedness and more human centric focus in communities. The opportunities now for our regional communities to embrace the Smart Communities concept is growing and the learnings from Covid have shown us that work is no longer as location dependent and topics are not as geographically constrained. We have more resources available through technology and digital integration which gives us the ability to share knowledge on a global scale and opens many doors for better collaboration. Our interactions now do not have to be either digital or physical, but our interactions should be specific. As Jacqueline Nagle says, "Wherever you are right now needs to be intentional and deliberate, and that's the one thing I hope we don't lose, we have to get rid of the either or, one or the other. And this is what being smart is all about, wherever we are, we need to be deliberate and intentional about it." 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 fabulous chat with Jacqueline Nagle. Jacqueline is a mentor and coach, teaching people how to speak, sell and position themselves strategically for business development, and a very good friend of the podcast. As mentioned in this episode, Jacqueline has played a huge role in creating the Smart Community Podcast and we are thrilled to have her on as a guest. Jacqueline begins by telling us about her diverse background, her current coaching and mentoring work and her passion for helping people reach their unfulfilled potential. We then discuss the power of language and communication, how to properly communicate and articulate language to be successful in business and navigate change, before Jacqueline shares what a Smart Community is to her. Jacqueline then shares examples of some of the clients she is currently working with and how she believes technology is crucial for seamless business operation and success, she shares her communication tips and how intense curiosity is key to good communication. We then discuss how organisations can set up for change through a good communications plan and the ability to be adaptive, and the importance of understanding the needs of your audience to send an intended message. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of the digital divide in some Australian communities, the overuse of the word disruptive and viewing language as an asset, or lack thereof. 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 Jacqueline via LinkedIn or via her Website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 chat with Dawid Jacobs, a prominent Identity Management Specialist in South Africa. Dawid tells us about his interesting background in the police force being trained in forensics as a fingerprint expert and his passion for identity management. He tells us about his company Dal Global and its focus, what a Smart Community is to him and we discuss the importance of trust and identity in Smart Communities. Dawid then dives a bit deeper into Dal Global and shares more about what they do, as well as the applications their technology offers, before we chat about synthetic identities and the implication of deep fakes. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of a more human element in Smart Communities, the micro and macro working together for communities, and the need for more regulation in the FinTech space. 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 David via LinkedIn or via email dawid.jacobs@dal-global.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 jam-packed episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great conversation with Dr. Kelly Turner, an assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA. Kelly begins by telling us about her current role and affiliations, her interesting and diverse background starting in politics, how her passion for research then led her to a PhD in Geography and Kelly tells us what a Smart Community is to her and how her current work fits into the Smart Communities space. Kelly then dives into the urban heat island effect and discusses some of the factors that contribute to heat retention in cities. She talks about how communities can make 'cooler' decisions and what factors contribute to reducing heat, we talk about the need to flip the script on heat retention issues, have better accountability and better ways to measure these issues to drive change. Kelly then tells us about cool paint and some examples of how it can reduce surface temperatures in cities, before we discuss the pros and cons of technology and the second order impacts associated. Kelly then shares some examples of how communities in the US are working towards more heat resilient cities, how some communities are more vulnerable than others, and shares some examples of the data and technology she uses to measure heat. We finish our conversation talking about the emerging trends of innovative and inventive ways to deal with and mitigate heat, and make cities more palatable. As always, we hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Kelly via Twitter, Instagram or the UCLA Website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 an interesting conversation with Michael Healy, the Smart Cities Programme Manager at Christchurch City Council and Michael tells us all about what Smart Communities are up to in Christchurch. Michael starts by telling us about his diverse background and how this led him into several continuous improvement roles, his passion for making people's lives and communities better through more efficient processes and how he transitioned into his current role with the City of Christchurch. Michael then shares with us what a Smart Community is to him and the wide range of projects he is currently working on, before sharing with us how the City of Christchurch began its Smart Communities journey. We then discuss the return on investment of Smart Community initiatives, whether they can be measured and how, and should Smart Communities be a core service of governments and councils. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the agritech space in New Zealand and its progression, aerospace and satellite imagery and how these are used to collect data and lastly micropositioning and its locating accuracy, all of which are contributing to improved 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 Michael via LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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: •John Carr from Episode 241 •Lior Steinberg from Episode 242 •Edwina Griffin from Episode 238 •Scott Shepard from Episode 239 •And finally Felicity Furey from Episode 240 Some themes that come through in the guest answers are around communication, community engagement, knowledge and information sharing and better use of data and technology in our communities. We all want better connected communities, which begins with better communication, transparency through knowledge and information sharing and using the data and technology available as enablers to allow communities to build those connections, digitally or physically. It is important to understand the needs of the community, be able to translate solutions in a relatable way and move forward in Smart Communities with co-creation and co-design. Opening up and facilitating conversations creates better solutions, better connections and more inclusive communities everywhere. As John Carr says, "The more we can demonstrate that [engineers] can take empirical data, do something with it, and then deliver it back in some way that's still empirical or palatable to the end consumer, that is how we move forward." 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 an interesting conversation with Lior Steinberg. Lior is an urban planner currently based in Rotterdam and the co-founder of Humankind City, which is an agency for urban change helping cities, organisations, brands and other change makers tackle the most complex urban challenges. Lior tells us about his multidisciplinary background and how he came to be an urban planner, he talks about his love of technology and finding ways to make life better through technology before discussing the diverse backgrounds he sees in the world of urbanism. Lior then discusses what a Smart Community is to him and how the concept of a 'stupid city' helps him determine are the cities we live in 'Smart Cities', before we talk about how some technology solutions are not always the most efficient and how more communities can incorporate different modes of transport. Lior then tells us about his company and some of the projects they have been working on, we discuss Lior's smart approach to implementing plans for his clients before discussing the need for communities to identify what is important to them, be able to measure that data and use technology to then improve those communities. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of micromobility and how more communities are adopting these modes of transport and the 5G network with more available sensors. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode, as much as we enjoyed making it!

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: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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 edwina@atoneapp.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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: hello@mysmart.community 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

Hi #smartcommunity friends. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great conversation with Katya Petrikevich, the Co Founder and International Director of the two companies; Participation Factory a consultancy that mainstreams participation and data-driven approaches into governance and process design and Civic Port, a database helping connect cities, towns, and other governing institutions with the Civic Tech companies. We begin our discussion talking about Katya's background, her passion for human rights, specifically women's rights and inclusivity and Katya tells us what a Smart Community is to her. Katya then shares with us her insights into the upward trend of participation, community engagement and inclusivity. We discuss Civic Technology as a tool for dialogue and communication with the community before Katya shares with us the projects her two companies are currently working on. We finish our conversation talking about the importance of systematic and continuous participation with communities. Katya tells us about the 'City Coordinators of Prague' project and finally we discuss the growth of the emerging trends of 'living data', participation and Civic Tech. 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 Katya via LinkedIn or email katya@participationfactory.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 an interesting conversation with Marcus Foth, a professor at QUT in Brisbane, in the Creative Industries faculty design lab. You might remember, Marcus was one of our first guests on the podcast back in Episode 4 in 2018. In this episode we touch on Marcus's background and his current work across interaction design. As well as how his passion for creating a better world involves tackling things such as sustainability, resilience, climate change, circular economy and data. We talk about the importance of good governance models to create smart cities, and discuss the difference between security and privacy. Marcus then shares with us the Data Care initiative and the sustainability projects he is currently working on. We finish our conversation talking about the emerging trends of the 'more than human theme' and data sovereignty before Marcus shares how government and industry are beginning to recognise the importance of a holistic sustainability approach. 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 Marcus via LinkedIn or on Twitter @Sunday9pm Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 Cristina Savian, the founder of BE-WISE, an international consultancy focused on driving the adoption of technology bringing to market the most promising innovation in the construction and property industries across Europe, US and Australia. Cristina tells us about her background in civil engineering and technology in Italy, the UK and now Australia, as well as her passion for digital twins. We start with a bit of a Digital Twin 101 explanation, and Cristina tells us about how she works in this space. We discuss how digital twins fit into the Smart Community space, the benefits of digital twins as well as use cases for how digital twins can help in the area of mobility and construction. Cristina and I then talk about the challenge of working out what data is worth collecting for digital twins, as well as the access, management and governance of that data. We finish our chat discussing how the pandemic has shifted some of the trends in our cities and what cities of the future might look like. 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 Cristina via email cristina@be-wise.xyz on Clubhouse, or at the websites www.be-wise.xyz or www.cristinasavian.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 I have a fantastic chat with Jo Palmer, the Founder and Managing Director of Pointer Remote, who work with communities, businesses and individuals to leverage remote work. Jo tells us about Pointer Remote and why she started it, as well as the changes to the business model that evolved over 2019 and 2020. We discuss the common struggles organisations face in being set up for remote work, as well as the opportunities and challenges in the remote work space since the pandemic. Jo and I explore the power of local champions to change mindsets about remote work in regional and rural areas and ways local government can support that. Jo explains why in-person meetings with your remote workforce are still required and the importance of a digital footprint to build trust in our digital world. We finish our chat discussing the impact putting women in work has on local economies, and the emerging trend of attracting and retaining professionals in rural 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 Jo on LinkedIn Connect with Pointer Remote at the website pointerremote.com.au or on social media Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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: •Warren Dean from Episode 196 •Sandra Phillips from Episode 219 •Oliver Lock from Episode 222 •Priscilla Radice from Episode 220 •Chad Ramage from Episode 221 •Elisa Choy from Episode 224 and •Bratton Riley from Episode 225 Some themes come through in the guest answers around data, trust in government, and community engagement. Getting accurate, up to date, open, private and safe data continues to be a core factor in so many aspects of Smart Communities, from better resource management to decision making to the ability to collaborate and integrate across disciplines, sectors and industries. And all of these things, including the communication of data protocols and decisions continue to be factors that impact trust in government and community engagement as a whole. As Elisa Choy says, there's "no shortage of passion and intent. You just need to arm yourself with the right data and then communicate in a way that people actually care." 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 Hi #smartcommunity friends. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant conversation with Lea Hemetsberger, the Communications and Projects Director for Open and Agile Smart Cities, which is an international network of cities and communities. Lea tells us about her background in journalism and passion for cities, mobility and literature, before sharing with us how her Masters degree sparked her interest in the Smart City space. We discuss the importance of having a long term vision and strong basic foundations for Smart Cities, as well as a bit about how Open and Agile Cities came to be and what they do. Then we dive into a great chat about digital twins, exploring the real use cases as a way of moving through the hype-disillusionment cycle and the mindset changes that are needed to get all stakeholders onboard. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends of standards and interoperability. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Connect with Lea via LinkedIn or email lea@oascities.org Follow Open and Agile Smart Cities on Twitter @oascities Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunityfriends. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a interesting chat with Bratton Riley, the Founder of CitiBot, a customer service tool for governments and companies. Bratton tells us about his background in local government and community, and his shift into business and technology, as well as his passion for connecting residents and government through digital platforms. We discuss how important trust is between local governments and residents, the challenges and opportunities of working in public service, and why supportive leadership is so important in local government. Bratton then shares with us a bit about CitiBot and the work his company does, as well as why it's so important to them to facilitate equal access to government institutions in underserved communities or those with accessibility challenges. He tell us about some of the key learnings and successes from working with cities and counties in the US, as well as ways local governments can use data to make better decisions, improve user experience and create opportunities for residents to be engaged. We finish our conversation talking about the emerging trends of evolving government to support innovation and developing vision- and outcomes-focused local government leaders. 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 Bratton via email bratton@citibot.io or the website citibot.io Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Elisa Choy, an economist and data strategist and the Founder of Maven Data. We talk about Elisa's background in data and strategy and her passion for making better decisions with data, as well as why it's important to the Smart Community space. Elisa tells us what Maven Data does and shares some really interesting examples of some of their research and insights, such as around the COVID vaccine in Australia, racism in Australia, and also wellness trends globally. We talk about the way data can help us predict trends and behaviour change, and what local governments can learn from the insights from Maven Data, as well as bringing traditional research methods, new market data insights and key stakeholders together to have better conversations. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of questioning existing systems and challenging the status quo, particularly with regards to the rise of women's voices, and diversity and discrimination in general. For a little bit of context, we recorded this episode on the 5th March 2021 shortly before the Women's March4Change here in Australia on the 15th March, and you will hear Elisa share how her insights had been predicting the rise of the female roar. 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 Elisa on LinkedIn or find Maven Data at mavendata.com.au or on YouTube and Instagram @mavendata Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hi #smartcommunityfriends! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great conversation with Ashleigh Wilson, a Community Manager at Coder Academy and a Neurodiversity Advocate. We recorded this in late 2020 so you may hear us refer to 2021 a lot. In this episode we talk about Ashleigh's background and how an interest in tech led to her studying IT and then becoming passionate about diversity and community in the tech world. Ashleigh tells us about her experience disclosing her Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis to her work and community and how this has led to her public speaking and neurodiversity advocacy work. Ashleigh explains the importance of neurodiversity in Smart Communities, and why she advocates for hybrid approaches to work and business rather than traditional silos. We talk about Ashleigh's role at Coder Academy and how her willingness to follow curiosity and give new things a go has led to her career progression there. Ashleigh and I then discuss the importance of community and checking in with each other in this digital world we live in now, especially in the wake of the pandemic. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of online education, Coworking 3.0 and career pivots. 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 Ashleigh on LinkedIn and Twitter @ashlebug Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunity friends and welcome back to #mobilitymarch! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great follow up conversation with Oliver Lock, Urbanist and Spacial Data Scientist currently finishing up his PhD in Participatory Analytics. You might or might not remember that I spoke with Oliver way back in episode 41, in 2018 back when we were called the Smart City podcast. We talked then about engaging people with smart cities and so in this episode Oliver tells us about his passion for engaging people with how their data is being used. Oliver tells us a bit about how he got into this space and what's changed since he was last on the podcast, before we dive into a great chat about his PhD and key findings from his research into participatory analytics. He tells us what participatory analytics is and how it works to connect the tech, decision makers and the community, plus a bit about the Civic Labs accelerator program he's currently working on. We discuss the power of local council relationships with their communities and the possibilities for regional areas since the 'flee change' of people leaving cities post COVID, as well as the opportunities that now exist for community engagement due to people's willingness to use QR codes for Covid check-ins. We finish up discussing emerging trends of transformation in transport modelling and not just big data but big participation in 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 Oliver on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunity friends and welcome back to #mobilitymarch! In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great follow up chat with Chad Ramage, Founder of Accessibility in the City, an online mapping solution that helps support those with accessibility issues with navigation. You might remember I spoke with Chad about this time last year in Episode 162 about about inclusivity and accessibility in Smart Cities. In this episode, Chad tells us about how his experiences trying to find accessible places for his wheelchair sparked his interest in the accessible Smart Community conversation and he tells us how that eventually led to his business Accessibility in the City. We discuss the development of the MVP of the platform and the community engagement they've been doing with underserved groups, plus the opportunities and challenges of mapping accessibility points of interest like noise level and accessible toilets, which aren't quite as simple as things like whether or not there's a ramp into a building. Chad tells us why accessibility is key to Smart Communities and what's changed since we last spoke to him, plus how far he thinks we've come in the accessibility conversation in Australia. We finish our chat discussing emerging trends of renewable energy districts, and accessibility being part of a Covid-Safe future, as well as how accessibility audits can help us all learn more about the accessibility of our businesses and local areas. 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 Chad via LinkedIn, email info@accessibilityinthe.city or accessibilityinthecity.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunity friends and welcome back to #mobilitymarch! All of this month we are talking all things Mobility, which by now you probably know is one of my favourite topics. In this episode I have a fascinating conversation with Priscilla Radice, the CEO of the Infrastructure Association of Queensland and CoFounder of Contribute Consulting. Priscilla and I have a brilliant chat about so many things, and it's not a strictly transport based mobility conversation, although we touch on that, but it is about the mobility of our societies and Smart Communities as we move into the future. We talk about using technology as an enabler and tool rather than a driver, and the importance of digital literacy in overcoming the cultural and behavioural barriers that lead to the Digital divide. Priscilla tells us how she sees Australia embracing these Smart concepts, and the need for brave and informed leadership to see further shifts in this space. We talk a lot about the power of language and leadership in making sure events and conversations are inclusive and informed, and how trust and transparency are key to integrating across disciplines, industries and sectors. We discuss the emerging trends of systemic social issues and civil unrest leading to democracies under threat, as well as the opportunities in emerging industries such as the circular economy. Finally Priscilla shares with us why it's so important that we are proactive about closing the gaps between the old jobs lost and the new jobs not yet created as technology and the rate of change continues to increase. 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 Priscilla on LinkedIn or via the IAQ website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunity friends and welcome back to #mobilitymarch! All of this month we are talking all things Mobility, which by now you probably know is one of my favourite topics. In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Sandra Phillips, Shared Mobility Architect and the founder/CEO of Movmi, a boutique agency that turns new mobility visions into reality. Sandra tells us about her background and her passion for shared mobility, and how working at Car2Go sparked her interest in the Smart Mobility Space. We talked about how transport and mobility fits into the Smart Community space, and what a Smart Community with a Smart Transportation Ecosystem means to Sandra. Sandra then tells us about Car2Go and MovMi, and why she founded it. We discuss mobility infrastructure in metro versus regional, and better planning and policy for new forms of mobility, plus partnerships and genuine collaboration between public and private sector. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of holistic thinking of the overall transport system and the importance of telling diverse stories and sharing diverse perspectives in this space. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast as much as we enjoyed making it. Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Sandra on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have another great chat with Beate Kubitz, a Transport Consultant and Future Mobility Researcher in the UK. I spoke with Beate in Episode 194 about her Cargo Bike food delivery service in May 2020, and was keen to chat to her further. In this episode, Beate gives us an update on the cargo bike delivery service and what's changed since we last spoke, and what their plans are for 2021. We also discussed the data they're collecting on how many car journeys the cargo bike service is saving, which is just great to hear! Beate then tells us how she ended up in the Smart Mobility and Transport space, and we discuss why it's so helpful and important to have a range of different voices and different experiences in the Smart Community conversation. We talk about solving the wicked problem of reduced use of public transport and increased single-occupant car journeys due to social distancing, as well as the challenges of mobility and transport in regional and rural areas. We finish our chat discussing the problems with our current business models for public transport and the emerging trend of balancing the for-profit with community service transport options. 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 Beate on LinkedIn or beatekubitz.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends, it's our podcast birthday! The Smart Community Podcast has turned 3 years old! So to celebrate we're doing a week of bonus episodes, bringing together multiple guest answers over multiple days to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this past year: •Leanne Kemp from Episode 155 •Andrew Mears from Episode 195 •Adam Davis from Episode 197 •Julia Spicer from Episode 152 Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends, it's our podcast birthday! The Smart Community Podcast has turned 3 years old! So to celebrate we're doing a week of bonus episodes, bringing together multiple guest answers over multiple days to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this past year: •Nathaniel Bavinton from Episode 183 •Allan Murphy from Episode 168 •Chris Rowlands from Episode 156 •Eleanor Carey from Episode 159 •Calum Cameron from Episode 185 Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends, it's our podcast birthday! The Smart Community Podcast has turned 3 years old! So to celebrate we're doing a week of bonus episodes, bringing together multiple guest answers over multiple days to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this past year: •Susan Shaheen from Episode 184 •Michael Milford from Episode 160 •Renee Ray from Episode 163 •Kris Libunao from Episode 191 •And Chad Ramage from Episode 162 Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends, it's our podcast birthday! The Smart Community Podcast has turned 3 years old! So to celebrate we're doing a week of bonus episodes, bringing together multiple guest answers over multiple days to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this past year: •Hyma Vulpala from Episode 167 •Zaheer Allam from Episode 158 •Vi Le from Episode 199 •And Teresa Harding from Episode 193 Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

Hello #smartcommunityfriends, it's our podcast birthday! The Smart Community Podcast turns 3 on the 23rd February! So to celebrate we're doing a week of bonus episodes, bringing together multiple guest answers over multiple days to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this past year: •Mark Thomas from Episode 187 •Sabrina Chakori from Episode 179 •Michael Holmstrom from Episode 201 •Imogen Schifferle from Episode 189 •And Deke Copenhaver from Episode 186 Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great chat with Rohan Light, a public interest technologist who works on data strategy, governance and risk problems. Rohan tells us about his dual background in the country and the city, and his passion for people, communities, the society we live in and data governance. Rohan and I discuss how he got into the Smart Community space and what a Smart Community is to him, as well as what data means for our communities and how data governance issues can become democratic issues. We discuss why it's important that communities and government are engaging with data conversations and ethics, and the power of not only asking the communities the right questions but also of understanding the differences in language in their answers. Rohan and I talk about the hidden problem of people who are not tech-enabled getting left behind, and the opportunities and challenges of baking Smart Community thinking and engagement into our essential services. Rohan shares his thoughts with us on algorithmic bias, algorithmic accountability, creeping AI ethics issues and the paradox that things can be explained but not understood. Plus, the need to bridge the gap between expertise and communication of expertise. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of the role of public art as a means of dealing with the techno shock we are experiencing, and why cities must get across the problem of the filter bubble and disinformation, online and offline. 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 Rohan on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I had a wonderful conversation with Dr. Emma Lee, a trawlwulwuy woman of tebrakunna country in north east Tasmania, and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Research Fellow at Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology. Her research fields over the last 25 years have focused on Indigenous affairs, land and sea management, policy and governance of Australian regulatory environments. In this episode Emma tells us about her background in Indigenous archeology and land management, and passion for First Nations social impact and regional development. I flip the script a little bit from our usual question order and in this episode we start with discussing the emerging trend of Smart Country that people definitely aren't talking about enough. Emma explains what country is and the connection to country that First Nations people have, some of the things we can learn from Smart Country like fire management, a broader concept of conservation, and a reciprocal relationship with the land and environment. Emma shares with us the power of language and the way it has been and is used to position Indigenous and First Nations ways of knowing as less than the coloniser's knowledge, the decolonising and grieving work we all need to be doing, and the balance we need to strike between the global focus that is prioritised in academia and our modern world, with the deep local knowledge that is so important to Smart Country and Community. Emma tells us how this played out in her work with the Reset the Relationship Government Strategy that she helped created, and the doors that were opened and the shift that was created through a statement of love amongst the hate. We then touch on how social media creates and fuels division and how important inclusion is in our Smart Communities, as well as the concept of individual responsibility within community and the big mindset shift that is for so many of us. We finish our chat discussing where to next for Smart Country and Smart Communities. This was a really powerful interview and I'm so glad Dr Emma Lee agreed to come on the podcast. 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 Emma via email ejlee@swin.edu.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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! We are finishing up our summer series with an extra special episode, before we shift back into regular content again. In this episode I'm excited to share a brilliant conversation I had with Lara Allen and Ashok Das. Lara and Ashok are event chairs for the upcoming Royal Academy of Engineering's Frontiers event on Smart communities, which focus on interdisciplinary research to address global development challenges. This event will focus on low-tech solutions and innovations, as well as bottom-up, context specific approaches that can be used to improve lives of the most underserved, mainly rural, communities in developing countries. The theme will also touch on the unintended consequences of some of those solutions in communities. I'm excited to be involved in this event, delivering the key note speech. You can www.raeng.org.uk/frontiers for more information on future opportunities. Now back to Lara and Ashok. Lara is the CEO of the Centre for Global Equality, a Cambridge-based civil society organisation that enables the evolution of innovative solutions to global challenges through inclusive innovation. She is also an Affiliated lecturer in Inclusive Innovation at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge. Ashok is the Founder and CEO of SunMoksha, a clean technologies company working on the socioeconomic development of rural communities. He has over 25 years of experience in semiconductor equipment (Bay Area, USA) and clean technologies (Bangalore, India), with a decade in developing and implementing state-of-the-art solutions for microgrids and irrigation to develop smart villages In this episode Lara and Ashok tell us about their backgrounds in academics and engineering respectively, and their shared passion for bridging divides and closing gaps in rural and underserved communities. Lara explains what inclusive innovation and appropriate technology are and why they matter for empowerment in Smart Communities, and Ashok tells us about some of the challenges he faced in creating Smart Communities in rural India. We talk about why it's important to focus on Rural and Underserved Communities and the power of long term interventions that take more than one generation to see results, as well as the role of entrepreneurship in research for international development. Lara, Ashok and I discuss why inter-disciplinary research is important in this area of smart communities and the biggest mistakes that engineers often make when approaching these projects. We finish our chat discussing advice for young professionals wanting to get into this space. 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 Find out more about the Royal Academy of Engineering Frontiers conference and connect with Lara and Ashok via the website www.raeng.org.uk/frontiers Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with James Peet from Episode 146. This episode is from late in 2019, when we did a special feature in November called MOVE-ember, about moving from old ways of doing things to new ways, particularly in local government. James Peet, the Chief Digital Officer at Moreton Bay Regional Council in South East Queensland. James tells us about his background in architecture and passion for using technology to help make things better, and how that has led him to his role in local government. James and I discuss what really sparked his interest in the Smart Community space and why he sees the concept as so important, firstly because digital disruption is happening and we need to keep up, but also because of the benefits and efficiencies it can provide in local council for things like asset maintenance. James then shares how he sees his region embracing these concepts, and a number of the projects he is currently working on. James and I then talk about the importance of having both an OT (operational technology) as well as an IT team, and why councils need to be planning for those skillsets now. We finish our chat discussing the big opportunities to further integrate across levels of government and the private sector, as well as the emerging trend of data standards and whether they're even necessary. We'll be sure to get James back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 James via email James.Peet@moretonbay.qld.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Chungha Cha from Episode 110. This interview was recorded in early 2019 and then aired in mid 2019, while I was on my Churchill Fellowship trip. Chungha Cha is the Co-founder and Chair of the Re-Imagining Cities Foundation. Zoe and Cha discuss his background in finance and how he became passionate about Smart Communities, plus some of the organisations he works with around the world. Cha tells us how he thinks Korea is currently embracing Smart concepts, projects he's currently working on, and why accelerating Smart Communities is the most effective way to positively influence whole cities and regions. They discuss the gaps and the greenwashing that can exist between different disciplines, and some ideas for better integration. Zoe and Cha finish their chat discussing the emerging trend of overwhelm in the face of the urgent climate crisis, and why we need financial arguments, not just people- or planted-focused arguments, in order to achieve true sustainable solutions. We'll be sure to get Cha back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Cha on LinkedIn or via the Reminagining Cities Website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with Emily Royall, from way back in Episode 122, from mid 2019, soon after I got back to Australia from my Churchill Fellowship trip. Emily is the Smart City Coordinator of the City of San Antonio, Texas. Emily tells us about her passion for advancing equity in Smart Cities, and the Community Driven Smart City model that San Antonio is pursuing. We discuss the digital divide in San Antonio and the equity questions municipalities need to think about when being marketed to by the companies mediating Smart City data. Emily then tells us about a number of really interesting and innovative projects the City of San Antonio is working on, including how they've partnered with kids in the local CoderDojo coding program to get viable prototypes for their community. Emily and I finish our conversation discussing her thoughts on integrating across disciplines and the jobs of the future, as well as the emerging trends of digital justice and digital equity. We'll be sure to get Emily back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Emily on Twitter @emily_royall and LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to 2021, can you believe it? And welcome back to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As you know, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. I'm also walking my talk this week and having a digital break so even though the podcast is still going out and my team will be popping some posts up on the socials, I'll be giving my brain and body a much needed rest and getting back to nature. This week we're sharing my interview with Dr. Amen Ra Mashariki, from way back in Episode 89. This episode was right at the beginning of 2019, soon after we'd shifted from Smart City Podcast to the Smart Community podcast. At the time of recording, Amen was the head of Urban Analytics at global GIS company, Esri, but now he's Global Director, Data Lab at the World Resources Institute. Amen has a really interesting background, ranging from computer science and being a software engineer at Motorola, to bioinformatics and Cancer Research Analytics, to being a Political Appointee in the Obama Administration and then the Chief Analytics Officer at the Mayors Office in New York City. He shares with us the personal story that sparked his interest in this Smart Community space and the key lessons he's learned about developing Smart Communities over his career. We talk about what Urban Analytics is and why it's so valuable in developing Smart thinking, and how Amen works with cities and operational officials in the areas of data science, analytics and location intelligence. Amen tells us about his visit to Australia to meet with some of those operational officials, as well as an interesting case study where data and analytics are being used to prevent housing discrimination in NYC. We discuss why Integrating for the sake of integrating almost never works and what to do instead, and the emerging trends of sensors, drones and blockchain being used in cities by cities. We finish our chat talking about the growing international trend of Civic Tech Engagement and Amen tells us how he sees the role of a Smart Resident in a Smart Community. We'll be sure to get Amen back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since this conversation. But in the meantime, 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 Amen on Twitter @amashariki Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As a reminder, we're taking a little break from new content over the Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of your all time favourite episodes. This week we're sharing my interview with architect Jack Barton, from way back in Episode 83. This episode was right at the end of 2018, soon after we'd shifted from Smart City Podcast to the Smart Community podcast. Jack is the Outreach Manager at the GeoSpatial Research Innovation and Development Lab at the University of NSW. He was also running his private practice Jack Barton Digital Design (JBDD). Jack and I have a great discussion about how his upbringing in a regional area, his interest in cities, and his love of digital technology all combined to spark his interest in the Smart space. We talk about why Smart Cities is a good buzz word, and the reasons connections and communication are important in Smart Communities. Jack shares his view on how Australia is embracing Smart concepts, and why long term vision is important, especially during this age of experimental pilot programs. We cover Smart City Standards and what they mean for people working in the space; the importance of digital and spatial literacy, and the need for more people to properly understand data so that they can use is effectively. We discuss how open data can facilitate better integration across disciplines, governments and industry, and finish our conversation on the emerging trends of boring and somewhat old-fashioned things like protocols, accountability, transparency, governance and longevity. We'll be sure to get Jack back on the show in the future for a full update about what he's been up to and also how our thinking has progressed since 2018. But in the meantime, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!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 Jack via Twitter @jbdd, on LinkedIn or visit the website jbdd.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. As a reminder, we're taking a little break from new content over The Australian summer holidays, and instead we are sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. This week is my interview from 2018 with Carola Jonas, the CEO and Co-Founder of Everty, who build software for electric vehicle charging. This interview was Episode 65 when we were still called the Smart City Podcast so you'll hear more references to Smart City than Smart Community. In this episode, Carola tells us about her background in logistics and freight and how her passion for clean tech has led her to the Smart City space, as well as the convergence of trends that make it so important. We talk about some of the impacts of energy infrastructure and transport coming together in a digital sense, and Carola then talks about some of the leading initiatives happening in Australia. She shares what Everty does and what they are doing in the Smart City Space, as well as some learnings from around the world, including how to increase uptake of EVs and getting the infrastructure ready. We have a little bit of a chat about demand on the energy grid, and finish talking about connected and automated vehicles integrating into our public infrastructure, and examples we can learn from in the adoption of EVs and other mobility options around the world. I also have an update from Carola. She says she is doing well and has had an interesting year in 2020 as we all have. There isn't too much that has changed since we recored this episode, other than the Everty software getting better and better. We'll be sure to get her back on the show in the future for a full update. But in the meantime, 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 Carola via LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook or check out the Everty website everty.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 to the Summer Series here on the Smart Community Podcast. We're taking a little break from new content over The Australian summer holidays, but with more than 200 episodes in the bank, we've got plenty for you to catch up on. During this Summer Series, we'll be sharing the replays of a few of our all time favourite episodes. And this week we're starting right back in the beginning when we were still called The Smart City Podcast with Nancy Odendaal, who was on Episode 3! Nancy is an Urban Planner and an Associate Professor in City planning at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In this episode not only will you hear Nancy and I discuss the cool new idea of a podcast about Smart Cities, we also talk about her background in urban planning and how she's been involved in the concept of Smart since the 1990s when it was called Digital City. We also discuss how informality is often core to understanding a city in the global South, the difference between Smart Urbanism and Smart Cities, and the contrast between big engineering approaches to Smart and the idea of Smart from the bottom up. Nancy and I also discuss the social justice angle of technology being used to challenge the status quo, and how tech is a part of the day-to-day even for people who live quite marginal existences. Plus, Nancy tells us why she believes South Africa is the perfect place to pilot Smart tech, and so much more. Of course, this episode is now almost 3 years old so I have an update from Nancy: she's got lots happening, including her new book Shaping Smart for Better Cities, with another book on the way! We'll be sure to get her back on the show in the future for a full update. But in the meantime, 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 Nancy via her Academic webpage at http://uct.academia.edu/NancyOdendaal or on Twitter @NancyO_UCT Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a brilliant conversation with Brooke Jamieson, the Experience Lead at PlaceOS. Brooke tells us about her background in mathematics and marketing, her passion for putting the user first and how she fell into the Smart Community space. We talk about the importance of helping people to make sense of data and the power for us as adults of doing things that are difficult and that we're not good at but persisting anyway. Brooke then tells us a bit about her work at PlaceOS and why she chose to do further study in Data Engineering, as well as why a focus on ethics and philosophy is such an important piece of the puzzle in all careers, but especially in tech. We discuss the importance of nurturing critical thinking and getting more diversity behind the code, as well as changing ways of working and the opportunities that come from proactively responding to disruption. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of platform versus product and UX versus UI, as well as going beyond silos and screenshots when it comes to truly integrated Smart initiatives. 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 Brooke on LinkedIn or on her fashion based Instagram @brooke__jamieson Connect with PlaceOS via the website https://place.technology/ Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great chat with Michael Holstrom, the CEO of STEM Punks (and that's STEM as in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths.) STEM Punks provides immersive STEM programs for students and teachers from grade 1 to 12 and through their programs, enables creative and entrepreneurial thinking to inspire tomorrow's innovators. In this episode Michael and I discuss his background as an engineer and in technology commercialization and startup development, as well as what sparked his interest in the Smart Community concept. Michael then explains how STEM Punks came to be and why the real world application of STEM skills is so important, not just learning to code in isolation. We share our thoughts on buzzwords and acronyms, like STEAM, but why STEM is the foundation. Michael tells us what STEM punks does in both the education and home market and how they've shifted this year with COVID accelerating their shift to online delivery. We discuss technology as an enabler for humans, the importance of lifelong learning and the mindset shifts we need in order to think more holistically and change the narrative of what STEM is. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of AI and the ethical and philosophical conversations that are needed now that the technology is here, as well as Michael's favourite resources. As always we hop you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Michael via LinkedIn or at stempunks.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, host Zoe Eather is back in the hot seat! In celebration of this being episode 200, Zoe and producer Ellen Ronalds Keene sat down for a chat where she answers questions from you, the audience of the Smart Community Podcast. We can't believe we're at 200 episode and now over 100,000 downloads. It's nearly been 3 years of the show and thank you so much for all of you for tuning in! Zoe answers 4 questions today from the many that were sent through via LinkedIn and email. Thank you to those of you who submitted questions! 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: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a fantastic conversation with Vi Le, Stakeholder Engagement Manager for the ICT and Agriculture Sector, with Standards Australia. Vi tells us about her background in ICT and telecommunications for both government and corporate, and what sparked her interest in the Smart Community space. We discuss why Smart Communities are so important and how Vi sees Australia embracing Smart concepts currently. Vi and I explore the challenges and opportunities of multidisciplinary conversations and the importance of having agreed upon operating models when having many stakeholders with different contexts and different ideologies at the same table. Vi then tells us about the work she does at Standards Australia and the Smart City Standards Roadmap for Australia they have developed. We then talk about why it's so valuable to have all three levels of government-national, state and local-in the implementation conversation so we can integrate better, move out of silos and away from us and them thinking towards genuine collaboration towards a shared vision. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of data, privacy and the questions we should be asking about the way data is used, as well as some of Vi's favourite Smart City resources. 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 Vi on LinkedIn or vi.le@standards.org.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great catch up chat with Aditi Padhi, Deputy Director - Planning for Yashi Consulting Services. You might remember I spoke with Aditi in July last year, in Episode 120. In this episode Aditi gives us a bit of an update on the projects she's working on and how COVID has changed some of their plans. We discuss how COVID has affected Aditi and her work this year, and a bit about the lockdown and semi-lockdown situation in India this year. Aditi tells us about some of the challenges their team has faced in getting the data from different disciplines to match and talk to each other, as well as the differences in the scale of areas of interest of different disciplines. We talk about how COVID has exposed the delicate balance between interconnected and self-reliant cities, and the way we look at distribution of population in a more complex way. Aditi and I then discuss the emerging trends of engaged citizens and having feedback mechanisms so the community can correct incorrect city data, as well as the changing way people are choosing where to live based on lifestyle rather than employment. We finish our chat discussing the opportunity for bringing historical districts and legacy parts of cities into the 21st century. 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 Aditi via LinkedIn or aditipadhi@gmail.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great conversation with Adam Davis. Adam is the director of TPL Connect, and TPL Connect are actually our sponsor for the month of November 2020, which we're super excited about. Now, you may remember Adam from Episode 90, which is over 100 episodes ago, where we talked about starting with the foundations. Now, in this episode, Adam and I discuss his background and his passion for delivering real results in the Smart City space, and not just tech for tech's sake. Adam shares with us learnings from a number of projects he's been working on, as well as sharing some of the challenges that companies and governments are facing when it comes to IoT and implementation of Smart Community projects. We talk a lot about use cases and enabling thinking and enabling technology and the art of the possible. Adam shares with us some of the projects he's currently working on with his team. We finish our chat talking about emerging trends in understanding the baseline and having measurable impact. And then Adams shares with us some of his favourite ways to learn about what's happening in this space, including from local government. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. This episode was brought to you by our sponsors TPL Connect. TPL Connect are specialists in the design and delivery of smart city and IoT technology projects, offering consulting, design and project management services. Their strength is their ability to deliver your project vision and not a compromised one. They do this by working with you in the early stages of feasibility to detail your project vision, objectives, requirements and scope, then work with you to deliver the project through to completion and handover. Their team take the stress out of designing and delivering technically difficult projects by working on your behalf to deliver the original requirements and objectives of the project. TPL Connect: your project vision delivered. Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Adam at tplconnect.com.au or via email adam.davis@tplconnect.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a brilliant chat with Warren Dean, Data Analyst and the Founder of DataTale, which is a company that provides Power BI solutions and training to local government. BI stands for Business Intelligence, by the way. It is important you know that because we will say it a lot of times in this episode. Warren tells us about his background in data analytics for both State and Local Governments, and how that led to his founding of DataTale. We discuss the importance of data storytelling and Warren shares some great examples of how Councils can use data more effectively as an asset to make decisions that better serve their communities. Warren and I discuss the importance of strong data governance and creating data cultures and data communities, as well as some of the things Warren considers when pulling data sets together. We talk about data being the common denominator and therefore possibly the key to integrating across disciplines, industries and governments, and Warren then tells us about the Standardised Data Model he's like to see that would make it accessible and affordable for small councils that can't afford to hire a data analytics or BI team. We talk about the importance of data as a skill not just for the future but really for now as well, and the emerging trends of changes in workplace and mobility in the post-COVID world. We finish our chat discussing some of Warren's favourite Data resources. 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 Warren via LinkedIn and his YouTube channel or datatale.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I had a brilliant conversation with Andrew Mears, the Founder and CEO of SwitchdIn, a software and IoT company that provides a solution for managing distribute energy resources to enable high penetration of renewable energy. Andrew tells us about his background as an electrical engineer and working on renewable energy projects in developing countries, and how that led to the founding of his company, SwitchdIn. We discuss how the approach to energy services is different in developing countries and the innovation there has been around renewables and energy service business models. Andrew then tells us what a prosumer is and why the maturity of our energy market in Australia isn't set up for prosumers-yet! We then talk about SwitchdIn and some of the projects they've been working on, plus why Australia is a great place in the world to be building a product like SwitchdIn. Andrew explains the difference between a microgrid, Smartgrid and virtual power plan, as well as the emerging trends in distributed energy services. We finish our chat discussing some of Andrew's favourite Smart Community resources. 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 Andrew at switchdin.com or via andrew.mears@switchdin.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great chat with Beate Kubitz, a Transport Consultant and Future Mobility Researcher in the UK. This podcast episode is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic. We recorded this chat in May 2020 but I'm definitely going to get Beate back on the podcast to give us all an update down the track. In this episode, Beate tells us all about her passion for transport and the way it impacts our lives, plus her interest in the innovations happening in the Mobility space. She then tells us about the Cargo Bike Delivery Service that came about out of a desire to meet demand for deliveries in the early days of the pandemic lockdown. We talk about the challenges of regular delivery models, such as vehicle access in very narrow lanes, and how the cargo bike idea was initially a crisis response to make sure people in the local community were able to access food during lockdown but has now sparked long term possibilities in terms of future mobility behaviour change and reducing reliance on private vehicle use. We discuss the volunteer model they have set up and the way it works with the local shops, as well as the changes to how we shop long term and the new business models that will be required in the future for grocers and shops, and potentially for the cargo bike delivery service too. Beate then tells us about the data she's been keeping on the delivery service, and the impact it's made not only in reducing emissions compared to a delivery van, but also the journeys people haven't made in their car to get groceries. We finish up talking a little bit about Beate's normal business and how that's changed during COVID, but we'll definitely have to have a follow up conversation to dive into that more. 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 Beate on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a fantastic conversation with Teresa Harding, the Mayor of Ipswich City in QLD, Australia. Teresa tells us about her varied background in the Defence Force, small business and IT, and her dual passion for local communities and veterans affairs. We discuss what sparked her interest in Smart concepts and why it's so important to have a balance of logic and creativity, vision and implementation in our Smart Communities. Teresa then tells us about the work Ipswich Council has done this year on setting up a Transparency and Integrity Hub to ensure trust is rebuilt with citizens and the local government is held accountable. Teresa tells us about this Hub works, the feedback they're getting on it and the benefits of adopting open data practices into local government. We also discuss how Ipswich integrates across disciplines, governments and industries and their plans for continued community engagement and a more participatory approach to policy planning. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of digital inclusion and improved local government customer service, plus the importance of diversity at our civic and government decision making process. 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 Teresa via email mayor@ipswich.qld.gov.au or on social media either on Facebook or LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great conversation with Practical Futurist, Andrew Grill, who you may remember from Episodes 38 and 136. This podcast episode is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic. In this chat, Andrew and I discuss how the pandemic has not only brought in a whole lot of new rules and social norms, but it's also accelerated his futurist predictions. Things that he was predicting to change such as in the future of work, have come to pass incredibly quickly. Andrew tells us how the disruption is a huge opportunity for change but is also exposing the weak points in every ecosystem, and increasing the digital divide. We talk about that digital divide particularly in the education space, where already disadvantaged students are being further disadvantaged, and teachers who were already comfortable with technology are more advantaged and able to be more effective than their colleagues. Andrew also tells us what has an hasn't changed for him, including the information he is learning and sharing, the types of work he does, and the mode of delivery and tools for engagement in his work. We talk about the pros and cons of working from home, the mental health impacts and what managers are learning now that they're in it with their employees, plus using business tools like Zoom for personal social connections and the need for digital hygiene due to the digital fatigue we're all feeling. Andrew then shares his predictions on the future of work, including the emergence of a third word space that is neither home nor office, and the increase of professional gig workers. We finish our chat with Andrew's three practical tips for coping while working from home and potentially physically isolated. 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 Andrew at Andrew.London or on Twitter @andrewgrill Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great chat to Kris Libunao, the Executive Director and Chief Sustainability Officer of Smart CT, a nonprofit organization based in the Philippines. Kris tells us about her background in urban planning, law and policy research, and what sparked her interest in the space, as well as what a Smart Community means to her. We discuss how Smart City practices need to be different in developing countries and the importance of data gathering, data literacy and community engagement. Kris and I talk about how the Philippines is embracing Smart Concepts and the challenges and opportunities that have been brought to the forefront this year during the pandemic. Kris then tells us about Smart CT and how they're building a community around the organisation. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of data appreciation and literacy, digital infrastructure and bottom up approaches, plus some of Kris's favourite Smart Community resources. 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 Kris via email kris@smartct.org or LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @SmartCT_PH Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great conversation with Peter Bjorn Llarson, the Director of Smart City Insights. This podcast episode is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic. We recorded this chat on the 1st of May, and since then Peter tells me he's doing well, he's doing a couple of nice local Smart City projects because obviously he's not travelling very much anymore. In this conversation, Peter and I chat about what the situation was like in Denmark pandemic-wise in May, as well as some of the key differences between Denmark and Sweden's approach. We then discuss the ways the Smart City concepts of digital transformation and data sharing and privacy have come to the forefront during this crisis, and how the private sector has been well placed to respond quickly, having already much of the foundational pieces already in place. We cover data collaboratives, data privacy and security, as well as the ways these complex issues are dealt with around the world thanks to differences not only in cultural attitudes but also digital preparedness of different nations. Peter then tells us a bit about how he works and how the pandemic has changed the way we work and meet worldwide, which has environmental, accessibility and lifestyle impacts. We talk about this global work from home experiment, Zoom fatigue and the pros and cons of digital workshops and virtual community building. We finish our chat discussing how this crisis has forced us into new ways of doing so many things, including a cool example about how Peter ran a Croatian Marathon in Copenhagen! 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 Peter on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant conversation with Imogen Schifferle, the Regional Partnerships Innovation Coordinator at Albury City and Wodonga City Councils. Now, in case you don't know because you're not from Australia, Albury and Wodonga are twin Australian cities located on either side of the Murray River and the state border between Victoria and New South Wales. The twin cities are a real hub for the region, and have been heavily impacted by the state border closures and lockdowns during the pandemic. So in this episode, Imogen first tells us about her background in digital technologies, particularly mobile technologies, as she's worked for both Telstra and Samsung, and how she's now working in Local Government. We discuss the differences in drivers and attitude between private companies and public service, as well as the differences in Smart Community ideas between regional and urban environments. She then tells us about the Rural Smart Community Strategy she's been working on, and how it's been informed by the needs of the community and also impacted by the bushfires from late 2019 and early 2020 that ravaged many parts of Australia. Imogen tells us about the 5 themes or initiatives that underpin the strategy and what it was like to try to bring together one strategy for two cities, spanning two states, encompassing 17 Local Government areas and a lot of different needs. Of course we finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of communities and individuals demanding more from their local governments and organisations, as well as some of Imogen's favourite Smart Community resources. 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 Imogen on LinkedIn or Instagram @imcheee Find out more about Albury-Wodonga at the Two Cities, One Community website at https://www.alburywodonga.gov.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 that brings together multiple guest answers to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this year: •Charlie Hamer from Episode 172 •Courtney Ehrlichman from Episode 181 •Debbie Reynolds from Episode 166 •Jamie Leach from Episode 171 •And finally Luke Stow from Episode 173 The themes that come through in all of the guest answers are around sustainability of Smart Communities, but not so much from an environmental perspective. These guests are focused on the sustainability of communities and of Smart projects from the perspectives of sustainable funding, sustainable data driven decision making, and sustainable access to resources, be they local or global. Several guests make important points about the fact that without sustainable investment of actual dollars, many Smart projects fail to get off the ground or continue past pilot phases. This of course hurts communities not only that were benefiting from those projects but also those that could have benefited had the learnings from the ongoing projects been able to be shared and scaled across other communities. Then there's the crucial topic of data being a public good, and that we must be investing not only financially in data, but also the skillsets and mindsets needed to have privacy, security and understanding of data so that we can really use it to drive decision making and policy that benefit the community. And of course fundamental to every Smart Community conversation is the fact that it's about sustainable access to resources, from transport to health care to food to manufacturing. Underpinning much of that is access to the internet, so that connectivity piece is crucial in preventing further digital divides. We also discuss the tension between the global and the local, and the balance between the need for self-sustainability and a village approach in local communities with the knowledge sharing and global collaboration that is so necessary in our world today. We can have both! 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: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I had a brilliant chat with Mark Thomas, the Founder and Managing Director of Serviceworks, an international consultancy providing strategic counsel on city building, smart city application, strategy, public policy and customer service. This is the second time Mark has been on the podcast, the last time was back in Episode 111, and this interview was recorded in mid July 2020. So we talk about Mark's background and his passion for solving wicked problems that matter to citizens, as well as what's been happening for him and how he's adjusted his business since COVID. But of course since we recorded this episode, Auckland New Zealand has also seen an outbreak, so just keep in mind that we recorded before that and don't mention it at all. It's a bit tricky this year given that I often record interviews way in advance of when they get released on the podcast, and obviously things with COVID change so rapidly but I know you're all Smart people who will understand that. Mark also shares with us his thinking around what he calls 'The COVID Chance', which is about the ways the pandemic has accelerated some of the Smart concepts like data sharing and privacy that we've been talking about for years, as well as the opportunities that exist in the midst of the crisis. We discuss the projects Mark has been working on including Mobility as a Service and connected platform projects in China, Indonesia and Malaysia, plus the way Smart solutions need to be customisable for different cultures, contexts and communities. Mark and I then explore the emerging trends of using blockchain in the city space, as well as new urban mobility systems and new citizen data control solutions that are emerging. We finish our chat discussing some of Mark's favourite Smart Community resources. 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 Mark via the Serviceworks website, or on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter @MarkThomasNZ Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great chat with Deke Copenhaver, the author of "The Changemaker: the Art of Building Better Leaders". Deke was Mayor of Augusta, Georgia for 9 years, and is currently the principal of Copenhaver Consulting. Deke and I met when I visited the US in January 2020 and we were introduced by our good friend Kerry Grace. Deke tells us about his background in business, real estate and land conservation, and how that sparked his interest in Smart Communities, which only deepened in his time as Mayor of Augusta. Deke shares what both Smart Community and leadership means to him and why long-term thinking is key to both, plus why he thinks Millennials will be the next great generation of leaders. Deke and I discuss some of his favourite community projects while in office, including the Laney Walker Bethlehem Revitalisation Project, and how the community engagement aspects worked in that project. We talk a bit about COVID and how Deke has been moving through this time, and the emerging trends of the mental health aspects of the pandemic, as well as the virtual work and digital divide aspects too. We finish our chat discussing some of Deke's favourite Smart Community resources. 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 Deke on LinkedIn or @dekecopenhaver on Twitter and Instagram Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a really interesting conversation with Calum Cameron, an Aussie based in Estonia, which is the world's first digital society and Europe's favourite startup ecosystem. Responding to the COVID-19 lockdown in Estonia he helped trigger the Hack the Crisis movement and was an organiser The Global Hackathon which combined connected more than 250k people from over 100 countries to develop and implement immediate solutions to the crises, which we talk about in this episode. We start by discussing Calum's background in IT helping the financial services digitalise, and how he came to be in Estonia. Calum then shares with us a history of Estonia, why they focused heavily on digitalisation in the 1990s, plus some of the interesting ways that manifests, like their digital citizen or e-residency program. Calum tells us how he got into this Smart Community space and why a diverse cross section from society is so important in getting different perspectives and different skillsets to best leverage the technology that's out there to solve community problems. We talk about how Smart concepts are understood by the general public in Estonia, including how data sharing works between agencies to make renewing your drivers licence a smooth process. Calum and I talk about the importance of trust and the social license to operate in digital societies, and how both public and private sectors in Estonia have intentionally invested in the affordability and reliability of digital infrastructure, as well as dedicated digital education and engagement programs to improve digital literacy in the whole population. We finish our chat discussing the opportunities and challenges of e-learning and digital collaboration, including his work with the recent digital hackathons, plus Calum's favourite resources in the Smart Community space. At one point we also mention Smart Community festivals and I say in the interview that I discussed it with Martin Tomitsch in his episode but no, it was actually Heath Raftery who I spoke to in Episode 113 about Smart Regions, so we've linked all those episodes up in the show notes too. 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 Calum on LinkedIn or via calum@digitalpath.ee Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a fascinating chat with Susan Shaheen, Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Susan and I chat about her interest in the nexus of technology, human behaviour and public policy, and how the US Smart Cities Challenge sparked her interest in the space, when she was involved with San Francisco's application. We discuss how pivotal and galvanising that grant was for many cities around America, and how the community engagement framework they used for the San Francisco application really valued a co-creation model between public, private and community. Susan then tells us about some of the projects she's been working on, including some research documenting the learnings from the cities of their experience of the Smart Cities Challenge. She tells us some of the takeaways from that research, including the four categories of Smart Cities or Communities they uncovered, plus the importance of not relying solely on champions for the long term sustainability of Smart projects. We finish our chat discussing the emerging focus of social equity and social justice in Smart Communities to help solve systemic problems, plus some of Susan's favourite resources. 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 Susan on LinkedIn or Twitter @SusanShaheen1 Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I had a brilliant chat with Dr. Nathaniel Bavinton, the Innovation and Futures Manager at the City of Newcastle in NSW. Nathaniel and I discuss his background as an urban sociologist and social researcher and how his interest how cities impact cultures and societies has led to his work as a city strategist and sparked his interest in the Smart Community space. Nathaniel tells us about the Newcastle, including the revitalisation that is happening there, and how the community came up with their own 3-part definition for what a Smart City means to them. We discuss how Nathaniel sees Australia embracing Smart concepts, and the opportunities, outcomes and obstacles of knowledge sharing and collaborating with neighbouring cities and local governments. We talk about the way the City of Newcastle has responded to COVID, and how the digital transformation and behavioural changes that were already underway in the local government really enabled those responses. Nathaniel then tells us about Lean In New, the city app that is helping not only engage and support the community, but also providing economic stimulus to local businesses too. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of planning for future city needs with shared digital architecture and going beyond open data to open algorithms and open analytics. 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 Nathaniel on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 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 that brings together multiple guest answers to the question, 'Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?" And this time I'm sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this year: •Jennifer Sanders from Episode 170 •Andrew Funk from Episode 157 •Melissa Dark from Episode 169 •Marco Marechal from Episode 165 •And finally Joy Taylor from Episode 154 The themes that come through in all of the guest answers are around inclusive local communities, community engagement and knowledge sharing in our Smart Communities. Several guests make the point that we need to be having real conversation about what people want and need, and inviting them to be involved in designing the solutions for their local communities. Bringing people along the journey is not easy, and of course this is all easier said than done. It's easy to say we need better community engagement but to make it happen is another thing. As Marco says, it can't just be an email survey, we have to go further than that and work harder than that. Those of us involved in these types of conversations and in the Smart Community space all the time aren't always aware how much the general public doesn't know about these kids of projects going on in their local area. But as we know, it's about the humans at the centre, not the technology, so if the humans aren't engaged then can we say the project is a success? Melissa Dark says, "you're never going to get the perfect solution that is 100% perfect for every person. But...we need to work out how we're going to best involve people in the process of creating those [solutions]." 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: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode, I have a brilliant conversation with Courtney Ehrlichman, the CEO at The Ehrlichman Group & Co-founder of RoadBotics. We recorded this interview in early June 2020. Courtney tells us about her background in urban studies, planning and transport and her passions for community, mobility and solving problems across industries. We talk about the concept of Universal Basic Mobility, and what a Smart Community means to Courtney, and why it's so important that technology is used as a tool to decrease divides and serve human needs. Courtney and I discuss how data can build wealthier communities and why efficiency is so important both from a local government economic development perspective, and from a citizen user perspective. We have a great chat about autonomous vehicle shuttles, and some of the moral, ethical and labour issues associated with them, as well as the other complex pieces of the mobility conversation, such as urban density, land use, housing affordability, employment options and lower-tech mobility solutions like active transport. Courtney tells us how she sees America embracing Smart Community concepts, the pothole detecting tech startup she co-founded, RoadBotics, and how she works with people. We finish our conversation discussing the emerging trends people aren't talking about of the food supply chain, and educating citizens on their privacy rights, as well as some of Courtney's favourite Smart Community resources. 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 Courtney via her website, LinkedIn or on Twitter Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great conversation with Urban Strategist Zaheer Allam. You might remember I spoke with Zaheer earlier in the year in Episode 158 and when COVID-19 broke out I knew I wanted to catch up with him again. So this podcast episode is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic. We recorded this chat on the 4th of May, and since then Zaheer tells me he's doing fine, he's still doing lots of writing because borders are still closed, but work is slowly resuming. In this conversation, Zaheer tells us what the situation is like in Mauritius at the time of recording, what's changed such as working from home, flexible work options in general and the disruptions for Zaheer personally. We cover a big range of things all along the themes of how COVID has impacted every industry and brought to the forefront a lot of Smart concepts, such as the importance of data, digital literacy, community engagement and cross-disciplinary approaches. Zaheer tells us why systems thinking is so important in Smart Communities, always but now especially as we move into a post-COVID world. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a digital economy, of localising supply chains, investing in resilient infrastructure and the democratisation of data. We finish our chat discussing the ways Smart Cities and Communities, including the 15 minute city concept, can help us build more sustainable, resilient, human-centred places to live, work and play. 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 Zaheer on LinkedIn and find him on Facebook Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Sabrina Chakori, the founder of the Brisbane Tool Library. Sabrina tells us about her background in environmental economics and her passion for creating a sustainable society, as well as what sparked her interest in Smart Community concepts. We discuss why democratising the economy is so important and the need for other economic models and using metrics other than just GDP. Sabrina tells us about the Brisbane Tool Library and how it fits in the sharing economy, as well as what she's learned through the process. We explore the concepts of access versus ownership, abundance versus scarcity and the balance between localisation and globalisation. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of alternative economic models and ways to structure our 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 Sabrina on Facebook or Twitter @SabrinaChakori or the Brisbane Tool Library website, Facebook and Twitter @BrizToolLibrary Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a fantastic conversation with Kim Seeling Smith, the CEO of Ignite Global. Kim used to call herself a 'Future of Work' expert, but these days she says the future has arrived so she's become a 'Now of Work' expert. This is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests and although Kim is not a previous podcast guest she is a good friend of the Smart Community Podcast. In this episode, Kim and I discuss her background and her work, and how it's really accelerated with the current crisis. She tells us about her research on what people are learning from this COVID work-from-home experiment, and why we all need to take this disruption seriously, learn from it, and be as prepared as we can be for ongoing disruptions into the future. We explore the relationship between COVID, under- and unemployment, and the critical skills shortage, as well as what the workplace will look like post-COVID and what managers in particular have to improve in order to be effective in the workplace of the next decade. Kim tells us about her white paper on the difference between companies that fail, those that survive and those that thrive after crises and recessions, as well as how she has reset her business during this time. We finish our chat discussing what employees and employers should be thinking about now that the Now of Work has arrived. 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 Kim via LinkedIn or at igniteglobal.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I had a wonderful chat with Debbie Reynolds, AKA The Data Diva. Now you may remember Debbie was a guest on the podcast just back in March 2020, but we had actually recorded that interview in December 2019. So then when COVID-19 broke out I knew I wanted to catch up again with Debbie and this podcast episode another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic. So in this episode, Debbie and I discuss what she's been up to since we last spoke and how COVID has changed her work schedule. We cover the fact that there is an increased need for data privacy and cyber security expertise during this time while so many people are on the internet more, as well as the need for both digital literacy and data literacy. Debbie and I explore the convergence of our digital personas with our real lives, and how to encourage people to take advantage of the benefits of being online while being discerning about the risks. We also discuss the internet as a human right in Smart Cities and what the pandemic is exposing and amplifying about the problems and the opportunities that already existed in our communities, such as lack of internet access or the possibility of avoiding a commute by working from home. We finish our chat with Debbie sharing some of her tips and tricks on data and privacy, and the benefits of using our technology to stay connected in this time of physical distancing. 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 Debbie via her website www.debbiereynoldsconsulting.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast I have a brilliant chat with Johanna Kloot, the founder of sustainability software GreenKPI. Johanna tells us about her background as a pilot, plus how an illness and her mission of making the world a better place for her nephew led to her career as a sustainability consultant. We discuss what sustainability is, why Smart Cities and Smart Communities are so important and how Johanna sees Australia embracing these concepts. Johanna and I then discuss the projects she's working on and how GreenKPI came to be. She tells us about the 3 main barriers businesses face in implementing sustainability as well as how important it is to be engaging and empowering people working at the ground level-not just those in head office. We explore making sustainability accessible and the need for small to medium enterprises to be included, plus the three-pronged approach to sustainability integration across consumer, business and government. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of food and water security that people aren't talking about enough, and the challenges, opportunities and lessons learned in COVID around housing in cities. 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 Johanna on LinkedIn or via the Green KPI website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a brilliant chat with Kim Houghton, the Chief Economist Officer at the Regional Australia Institute. Now this is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests and although Kim is not a previous podcast guest he is a good friend of the Smart Community Podcast. When we recorded this in mid April 2020, Kim was in quarantine in a hotel in Hobart. I am pleased to share an update that he is out of quarantine and everything is going ok. In this interview Kim and I discuss what COVID has exposed for us, particularly in regional areas, such as connectivity issues, lack of digital literacy and the re-emergence of the decade old conversation about the digital divide in regions. We talk about online learning tools and the wider implications of that for those who don't have reliable internet, plus the need for capacity and confidence building in digital skills for both young and old in regional and underserved areas. Given Kim was in quarantine at the time of recording, we also talk about the challenges of isolation, working from home and the power of digital connections, plus how we can make digital a tool that works for us, rather than being slaves to it. We finish our chat discussing the opportunities and challenges showing up in this crisis around the idea of regional resilience, plus why we all need to be mindful of Digital Etiquette. As this was not a normal podcast interview, Kim didn't tell us how we can connect with him but you can find him on LinkedIn. 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 Kim on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a fantastic conversation with Rachel Smith, who is a previous podcast guest, and also a transport planning and demand management consultant. This episode is actually the audio from the video interview I did with Rachel, which is part of the series I've been doing on YouTube catching up with previous guests during this time of much change in the world. So if you want to see those interviews you can head on over to our YouTube channel to catch up with what previous guests like Ryan McManus, Debbie Reynolds, Sally Illingworth, and Jonathan Reichental have been getting up to in the last few months. In this episode Rachel and I chat about the work she does in demand management and why it's important to Smart Community approach, plus what crises can show us about how we can use resources in Smart ways. We discuss what COVID has exposed about the way people live, and the relationship between consumerism and mobility/transport. Rachel and I also talk about why it's so important to have foundational systems that underpin the sexy tech solutions like Mobility as a Service, as well as involving end users in designing the solutions so we're not just giving more options to people who already had options and continuing to leave out the people with the most at stake. We cover the reasons we should be communicating technical things and important decisions in plain English to the public, how we can encourage more informed and engaged citizens, and the power of government directives to shape public behaviour. Rachel also tells us what she learned from her research and the three things required for human behaviour change. We finish our chat discussing why we should forget our fear of failure and put our best and most innovative ideas for post-COVID life forward so we can shape the future. Because this wasn't a usual podcast interview, Rachel doesn't tell us where to connect with her at the end of the episode, but you can find her on LinkedIn or at her website, and the links are in the description of this episode. 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 Rachel via LinkedIn or her website cyclingrachelsmith.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a fabulous chat with Luke Stow, the CEO of Alchemy Solutions, which is an Australian company that specialises in helping organisations make shifts with emerging technology, but they come at it from a people centric perspective. Luke tells us about his background as a technologist and why he's passionate about how technology can enable our businesses, communities and lives. We recorded this just as the COVID crisis was ramping up here in Australia and lockdowns were beginning, so that gives you a little bit of context for our conversation. We talk about how lockdowns are highlighting the opportunities and challenges of connectivity and the impacts of COVID responses on the digital divide, work-life flexibility, health prevention and treatments, as well as many aspects of our culture. Luke and I discuss the robust conversations that are needed around privacy and data during and after this crisis, and the need for us to intentionally choose the 'new normal' going forwards. Luke also tells us about the projects he works on with Alchemy Solutions and what he learned from a Hong Kong project about the power of knowledge sharing in Smart Communities. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends in health, technology and privacy, and the power of human connection and sharing real stories, now more than ever. 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 Luke on LinkedIn or at luke.stow@alchemysolutions.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a fascinating chat with Charlie Hamer, the CoFounder of Public Sector Network. Charlie tells us about his background in computer science, environment and events, and how he ended up starting the Public Sector Nector community platform. He has a passion for technology and the environment, and for facilitating connections so he tells us about why he started PSN and the reasons they expanded from Australia to the US, Canada, New Zealand and soon the UK as well. Charlie tells us what sparked his interest in the Smart Community space, and we discuss what the terms Smart City and Intelligent Community mean, as well as how the movement has been maturing over the last few years. We cover how Charlie sees Australia embracing Smart concepts, and what he's seen in Canada as a result of the Smart City Challenge that was run by the Canadian government there. We discuss how to balance funding and marketing with the real substance of Smart Community projects, and the importance and power of sharing real stories and giving a voice to smaller, regional projects. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of privacy, data security and the waning trust in government, which is even more relevant now than when we recorded this a few months ago. Charlie's episode was the last in my bank of interviews recorded before the pandemic began really impacting the world, so in the weeks to come, we'll start sharing a mix of quote unquote "normal" episodes where I ask guests all the usual questions, the audios from some of the previous guest Covid-19 update interviews I've been doing on YouTube - By the way, remember to head on over to our YouTube channel to catch up with what previous guests like Ryan McManus, Debbie Reynolds, Sally Illingworth, Jonathan Reichental, Rachel Smith and more have been getting up to in the last few months. And of course like Charlie and I discussed in this episode, if you have a real story to share about a Smart Community project that's making a difference, particularly if it's a smaller project or from a regional or rural area, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch at hello@mysmart.community As always, we hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we've enjoyed making it. Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Charlie on LinkedIn or at charlie@publicsectornetwork.co Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I had a fantastic chat with Jamie Leach, a Data Technologist and the the CEO and Founder of Open Data Australia. She has an extensive background in project management, finance, technology, and defence, as well as leading data and technology companies through capital-raising and global expansion. A reminder that like all our recent episodes this one was recorded before the global pandemic but I think it's a fantastic and really relevant conversation all the same. In this episode, Jamie and I discuss her passion for the transformative potential of data if it is leveraged and harnessed in a positive way. We talk about what sparked her interest in data and Smart Communities, and how making good use of data can help future proof businesses and organisations going forwards. We cover so much, including the challenges and opportunities of using and analysing data well, particularly for governments, and the different skillsets that are needed. Jamie tells us why it's so important that we are educated and empowered around data, especially those who don't have data literacy already, and the importance of just taking the first steps in that direction. Jamie and I discuss how she sees Australia currently embracing the data governance space and some of the projects she's working on. We finish our chat exploring the emerging trends of data visualisation and of AI cognitive search. As always we hope you enjoyed listening tot his episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Jamie via LinkedIn or on Twitter @opendataaus or the website Opendataaustralia.org Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast I have a great conversation with Jennifer Sanders, the Co-Founder and Executive Director at the Dallas Innovation Alliance or DIA as she refers to it a lot in this episode. Jennifer tells us about the DIA, how it came to be and the needs-based, neighbourhood-centric approach that they take. We cover the importance of educating and empowering citizens, especially young people and people from underserved neighbourhoods, on how they can engaged with their communities and Jennifer shares a great story about the benefits of giving kids a seat at the table when discussing solutions to community problems. We discuss how Dallas is embracing the Smart City concept and the real impacts and benefits of the openness, transparency and knowledge-sharing that goes on between individuals and organisations in the Smart City space. Jennifer tells us about the projects she's working on with the DIA, including their focus on equity, digital inclusion and having a regional focus through the North Texas Innovation Alliance. We have a great chat about how the regional approach is the natural next step from the city-centric focus and how it helps with efficiencies and economies of scale for smaller towns with fewer resources. Now the DIA has dozens of partner organisations from all sectors and Jennifer tells us about how they approach integration and collaboration with so many stakeholders. We finish our chat talking about the emerging trends of data privacy and ownership in public data-driven projects, and we have an interesting chat about telemedicine too. This episode was recorded before Covid-19 brought travel restrictions and lockdowns to the world and so it will be interesting to see what the innovations in that space are once we get through this crisis. 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 Jennifer on LinkedIn or Twitter @dallassmartcity Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the podcast I have a brilliant conversation with Melissa Dark, a communications and stakeholder engagement consultant. Melissa is the Chief Collaborator at Common Place Communication and the Co-Founder of Busting Silos, and she is passionate about how we involve people in the decisions that affect them. Now, like all the recent episodes on the podcast, this conversation was recorded before Covid-19 changed the world, however I think it's fair to say that communications and stakeholder engagement has only gotten more important since then-as we say at the end of this interview, communication skills can be really undervalued until they're really needed, and that's exactly what we're seeing play out in the world today. If you are wanting more up to date pandemic related content, I am doing a series of interviews on YouTube with previous podcast guests that checks in with them to see how their organisations are changing or not during this time, and how the Smart Community space is approaching Covid-19. In this episode Melissa and I talk about what we can learn about community engagement from organisational change management research, and why trust is the absolute key factor in successful engagement in both communities and organisations. Melissa tells us what engagement actually means to her, and the relationship between integrity, empathy and authentic engagement. We talk about the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies have brought to the comms and engagement space, and the fundamental things that haven't changed. Melissa shares with us that she believes the emerging trends in the engagement space are not in fact tech related but actually the return of old school human approaches. We finish our chat discussing Melissa's work with Busting Silos helping integrate through and across boundaries in organisations, both internally and externally. 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 Melissa on LinkedIn or via either of her websites, CommonPlaceCommunication.com or BustingSilos.com.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I had a great conversation with Alan Murphy, the Smart Dublin Regional Lead. Please note: this episode was recorded before the Covid-19 pandemic. Smart Dublin is an initiative of the four Dublin Local Authorities to engage with smart technology providers, researchers and citizens to solve challenges and improve city life. In this episode Alan tells us about his background in IT consulting and his passion for new ways of doing things using technology. He tells us about what sparked his interest in this Smart space, including friend of the podcast, Jonathan Reichental who you may remember from episode 77. Alan and I then discuss what Smart Dublin actually is and some of the projects Alan's been working on with Smart Dublin in the areas of mobility, environment, energy and citizen engagement. Alan shares with us how he sees Ireland embracing Smart concepts, and the maturing of the conversation around Smart Communities. We talk about integration, and Alan explains Smart Dublin's collaborative approach, plus we cover the power of having champions and stakeholders involved from the start. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends in the mobility space of commute time now being considered by employers, and of incentivising more sustainable modes of transport. 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: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a fascinating chat with Hyma Vulpala, the Deputy Director of Digital Workplace, Research and Academic Information Services at La Trobe University. Now, when we recorded this a few months back Hyma was Head of Digital and Data for Yarra Ranges Council in Victoria, so you'll hear us refer to that in this episode. Hyma tells us about her background in IT and digital and her passion for the opportunities that the ever-changing digital space provides. She tells us some of the changes she's seen in the space over the last 2 decades and how the rates of technological change are really increasing, especially in the last 5 years. We discuss why Smart City and Community concepts are so important and will continue to be into the future. Hyma and I talk about the different industries in Australia that are adopting Smart concepts, and the dangers of not embracing digital transformation, including not attracting and retaining the required skills sets. We discuss some of the projects Hyma has been working on at Yarra Ranges Council, and the changes in community engagement, customer service and communication styles that digital technology has facilitated. Hyma tells us about the ways Yarra Ranges Council needed to integrate across different departments in order to fulfil their digital strategy, and the cultural shift that is needed for true digital transformation to occur We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of industries and employment that will be most affected by technology, and the need to look at support, skill building and employment opportunities, both for those in impacted industries and also for young people just entering the workforce. 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 Hyma on LinkedIn Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode, I have a brilliant conversation with Debbie Reynolds, also known as The Data Diva. Debbie is a thought-leader and advisor to Multinational Corporations for handling global data privacy, cyber data breach planning and response, and complex cross-functional management of data-centric projects. In this episode, Debbie and I talk about the divide she saw growing up between the opportunities available in big cities like Chicago compared to nearby small towns and suburbs, and how that sparked her interest in the Smart Community space. Debbie shares with us the trends and considerations she sees related to the digital divide, and how it plays out differently in the US compared to Europe and elsewhere, plus why it's so important to inform citizens about data transparency, privacy and protection issues so that they can make informed decisions. We talk about the new data privacy laws in California that came into effect in January 2020 and the impacts Debbie expects, both at the individual citizen level and the big tech companies level. Now, we recorded this conversation in December 2019, so we talk about the California Consumer Privacy Act in future tense, but of course this episode is airing in April 2020 and so the CCPA is well underway now. Debbie shares her observations of what's happening globally as the world moves towards more data ownership at different rates in different places and the challenges and opportunities of integrating and collaborating between disciplines, organisations and governments, especially with regards to data breaches and ransomware incidents. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trends of the prevalence of biometric data and also of ransomware attacks on public and private organisations. Be aware that there are a couple of spots in this interview where the audio cuts out or clips the end of words, however it's a brilliant conversation overall. 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 Debbie via her website www.debbiereynoldsconsulting.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a great conversation with Marco Maréchal, the Strategic Advisor of Communication and Innovation for Smart City and Smart Mobility to the Netherlands. He is also the author of the book "Mobility in the Future 2030: Finally the people have the say" so I felt he was a great guest to round out our month here focusing on #mobiliitymarch. In this episode, Marco tells us about the project on cooperative vehicles that sparked his interest in Smart Communities 6 years ago and why Smart Communities with humans at the centre are so important to him. We talk about how the Netherlands have embraced Smart concepts, and the Mobility as a Service project Marco is working on reduce congestion and incentivise people to use alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles when commuting to work. Marco shares the biggest benefits he sees in Mobility as a Service and ways the business model of MaaS is still changing and evolving. We discuss ways to better integrate with all stakeholders and how we need to have private cars being a part of the equation in order to start the MaaS conversation. He also tells us about some interesting lessons from an Intelligent Road project in the Netherlands that, in Marco's words, failed. Plus we finish our chat discussing emerging trends, including air transit and autonomous drones, sustainable mobility movements and how better accessibility and mobility services can enable people to live where they want to live and reduce the need for supercities. 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 Marco on LinkedIn or via his website www.toconnect.nl/en Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Ryan McManus, the Founder and CEO of SHARE Mobility, a mobility company that helps organisations and cities solve big transportation problems with mobility-as-a-service. Ryan and I met on my trip recently to Columbus, Ohio, which was in January, 2020. I met Ryan at a meeting with Smart Columbus where I learned about the work they're doing. Now obviously, this episode was recorded before the corona virus became a pandemic. Currently SHARE is repurposing their shared transport network and customer support staff to serve the needs of the people who are staying at home. On the topic of Covid-19, I just want to give you a little bit of an update of what our team is doing to respond. Our My Smart Community team was virtual already and will remain this way. We are following the health advice and following hygiene and social distancing precautions. For now, the podcast will continue as per usual while the situation continues to develop, but down the track and once there's a bit more data, we anticipate and doing few episodes on this pandemic. In the meantime, we will continue to provide you with regular podcast content to entertain and educate you. If you're finding yourself with more time on your hands than usual, remember we have a wonderful back catalogue of episodes for your listening pleasure! Now, more than ever, it's time to be Smart and make our technology work for us so that we can stay human. We use it to work as we need to, for us and our teams and be able to adapt as the needs change. We can use it to consume credible information from credible sources and stay up to date with the latest advice and switch off from the channels that aren't serving us right now. We can use it to be kind, understand that we may need to do things differently for a while and reach out to those who might find themselves isolated, or vulnerable. To be smart, so that we can stay human. In this episode Ryan and I discuss his interest in cars and innovation, and how he brought concepts from IoT and automotive industries together to create SHARE. We talk about how SHARE works and the gap they are fulfilling that is different from both public transit and from what ride-sharing companies were providing. Ryan tells us what a Smart Community means to him, and how we can integrate mobility into our communities. We discuss some of the projects Ryan has been working on, the different ways organisations are working together in Columbus to solve mobility problems, and the benefits of working in the Smart Columbus ecosystem. We finish our chat talking about the emerging trends of the opportunity for improvement when it comes to insurance in the mobility space, as well as the ever-important topic of data being used for public good. 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 Ryan @rynmcmns on Twitter or via RidewithShare.com Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a fantastic conversation with Renee Autumn Ray. Renee is an urban planner who has worked in transportation planning, policy, operations, and data evaluation. She is currently the Strategy and Innovation Leader at Conduent Transportation, a technology company which includes payments and data analytics for transit, curb-side management, road user charging, and public safety. She also serves on the Transportation Research Board committees for Intelligent Transportation Systems and Innovative Public Transport Services and Technologies, and the Board of Directors for Georgia Bikes, so she's another great guest in the #mobilitymarch series. Renee and I discuss the early career experiences that sparked her interest in Smart Community concepts and the power of bringing data, including qualitative data, into decision making. Renee tells us about some of the projects she's been working on, including curating panels for conferences with a focus on mobility and accessibility. We also talk about why we should be looking at the way parallel industries have solved similar problems when we're looking at problems we're facing in our own industries. Renee also shares with us the emerging opportunities for accessibility in the micro-mobility space, and the different ways people are thinking about reducing accessibility barriers to travel. We then have a great chat about how important accessible and flexible workplaces are for everyone, and especially those with disabilities, which is timely considering the way Covid-19 is forcing a lot more people into remote work. We finish our chat with Renee sharing a couple of her favourite resources for learning more about these concepts. 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 Renee on LinkedIn or Twitter @reneeautumnray Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode I have a fascinating conversation with Chad Ramage, Founder of Accessibility in the City, an online mapping solution that helps support those with accessibility issues with navigation. As someone in a wheelchair himself who is actively working on an innovative solution to accessibility problems, I knew Chad was going to be an excellent guest for our #mobilitymarch series. In this episode Chad tells us about his background in information technology and his passion for accessibility, including his experiences being in a wheelchair that really sparked his interest in the Smart Community and Accessibility space. Chad and I discuss what a Smart Community is and why the concepts of accessibility and inclusion so important, plus the need for genuine consultation on accessibility solutions with the people who have accessibility problems. We talk about how data can help Chad with planning accessible journeys, and all about his platform to help others do just that. Chat explains Accessibility in the City, including how it works and who is using it the most so far. We discuss why accessibility needs to be a key area for local government, and how increasing accessibility also means increasing social inclusion and quality of life. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of data security and privacy for everybody, but especially how that impacts people with disabilities and other vulnerable community members, plus the biggest accessibility issues Chad has that people don't talk about enough. 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 Chad via LinkedIn, on Facebook or via the website Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.

In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast I have a great chat with Crissy Ditmore, the Director of Str