Connect. Collaborate. Contribute.™

Smart(er) Cities: At the Intersection of People, Data & Devices
September 7, 2021 | 6:00pm CDT  | Online via Zoom

Online via Zoom
The Zoom link will be added to this page the day of the event

Speakers
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Chelsea Collier
Founder
Digi.City

Charlie Catlett
Senior Research Scientist
Discovery Partners Institute
University of Illinois ​

6:00-6:15pm Networking
6:15-7:30pm Presentation
7:30-8:00pm Q&A
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The topic of smart cities is characterized by complexity. From a technical perspective, a smart city involves everything from devices to data to digital infrastructure. The urban, human experience adds another layer as we explore how to make smart cities relevant, equitable and accessible. Smart cities have the potential to make amazing contributions to society, but there are important issues to resolve including data privacy/ownership, public-private partnerships and infrastructure resilience just to name a few. As overwhelming as this topic is, one aspect is very simple - smart cities are about solving challenges for people, not just about technology. Join us as we dive into the issues and showcase projects that are producing tangible results in this fascinating space

This event is in partnership with the Austin Smart City Alliance. ASCA helps facilitate projects that will advance smart city infrastructure that improves operations, services, and quality of life, increases efficiencies, and reduces costs for the city and its constituents.
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 speakERS

Chelsea Collier
Founder
Digi.City

Chelsea Collier convenes people across sectors to focus on how technology can be applied to civic and social challenges. She is the Founder of Digi.City, an online platform that advocates for  human-centric approaches to smart city solutions. She also serves as the Editor-at-Large for Smart Cities Connect which provides meaningful content and connects a community of decision-makers to empower smart cities at all stages of growth. 

She is a University of Manchester (UK) Simon Industrial & Professional Fellow (2019), a Marshall Memorial Fellow (2018) and an Eisenhower Fellow (2016). Her work has also been featured in Governing Magazine, Inc.com, Venture Beat, the Chicago Tribune and dozens of other publications. Her previous experience - state government, economic development, social enterprise, tech startup, small business - informs her cross sector approach.  She lives in Austin, Texas and is active in the local tech and social impact communities. Her masters and bachelor degrees are from the University of Texas at Austin.

Charlie Catlett
Senior Research Scientist
Discovery Partners Institute
University of Illinois 

Charlie Catlett is a Senior Research Scientist at the Discovery Partners Institute of (DPI) of the University of Illinois, a Senior Computer Scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, and a visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation. He led the NSF-funded “Array of Things” urban sensing and AI-at-the-edge project and is Co-principal investigator of SAGE, an NSF-funded project extending Array of Things technology platform to embed AI in urban, environmental and emergency response settings. Charlie was part of the original team establishing the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), leading efforts including NSFNET, an early component of Internet, and becoming NCSA’s Chief Technology Officer prior to joining Argonne and UChicago in 2000. He was one of GovTech magazine’s “25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers” of 2016 and in 2019 received the Argonne Board of Governors Distinguished Performer award. Charlie is a Computer Engineering graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.