Julie is a Director for Urban Development and leads on the Smart Cities sector. With her global remit working with cities around the world, she is responsible for engaging with cities to showcase the role of infrastructure and integrated technological solutions in urban development. Her recent book Smart Cities: Cities in the Digital Age, illustrates the importance of digitalization in the field of critical infrastructure. Her latest research on The Business Case for Smart Cities: Infrastructure Investment has drawn global attention with its unique methodology for business case development for cities. Particular areas of specialism include the financing and funding of urban infrastructure through the use of innovating mechanisms and value capture. On this topic, Julie recently co-authored the report – ‘Investor Ready Cities’ in conjunction with PwC and BLP Law. Julie also specializes in urban master planning and digital enablement. Julie is a member of the Smart London Board, Institute for Future Cities Board and Urban Living Partnership Advisory Board. She also supports Innovate UK in the review process for the Future Cities Catapult.

As Chief Executive of the Whanganui Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Marianne is passionate about helping regional businesses thrive. The Whanganui Chamber of Commerce and Industry is part of a global network of Chambers of Commerce.

As CEO of Archibald & Co. and as an innovation leader, she consults in a strategic planning and project management capacity to the public and private sectors.  Specialising in delivering solutions that often impact entire communities, Archibald & Co. takes a triple helix approach, connecting business, education and government. It employs the principles of co-design and collaboration in our work and we are passionate about social enterprise. 

As the leader responsible for Whanganui’s early fibre network roll out and the inclusion of Whanganui in the world’s Top 7 Intelligent Communities, Marianne is future-focused and consider this the right time to develop an overarching plan for how we want our communities to look in the future. 

Robert Bell is co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, where he heads its research, analysis and content development activities. He directs the multi-stage analysis of communities for the annual Intelligent Community Awards program and authors the in-depth profiles of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities that are core to ICF's mission. Robert developed and leads the Intelligent Community Master Class and Community Accelerator programs, as well as ICF's advisory services for communities, and is a frequent speaker at municipal and telecom events. More

Having worked at director level in digital transformation and analytics in the Electronics industry and the Media industry with the Hollywood Studios, Tony brings a wealth of experience in using digital platforms to improve connectivity in the B2C and B2B space.

Tony’s key skill set is the understanding, communication and implementation of how software tools and applications, which allow the integration of external and internally generated data, can be combined to improve connectivity and create new productivity and marketing applications.

‘Many City Councils and BID areas find starting on the road to becoming a Smart City and maintaining the momentum is very difficult. We make this easier by bringing all your internal stakeholders and their communication requirements into your very own app store, then use this as a base to develop new Smart City Apps to encourage connections between your stakeholders.’ Tony Bicknell CEO

SmartWorld Connect have recently won the 2018 Start-Up of the Year awarded by Innovate UK at the Smart IoT show in London.

As London’s first Chief Digital Officer, Theo will play a leading role in realising the Mayor’s ambition to make London the world’s smartest city, ensuring that the capital’s status as a global tech hub helps transform the way public services are designed and delivered, making them more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of Londoners.

Theo joins with extensive public and private sector experience. As Cabinet member for Finance, Technology & Growth at Camden council, Theo established Camden as London’s leading digital borough through its use of public data – and this year they received national recognition as Digital Leaders ‘Council of the year’.

He’s worked at GovTech accelerator Public Group, advising start-ups on the growing market in local public services, and was previously Head of Policy & Public Affairs for the video games industry’s trade body, Ukie.

Tim was elected as the first Mayor for the West of England on May 4, 2017. During his career, he has combined international business roles with public service in the West of England.

Born in East Africa, and raised in Somerset, before settling in Winterbourne, he has international experience working in business development, exports, sales and marketing. Having worked with small and medium-sized enterprises and global players, he is committed to supporting businesses of all sizes to achieve their full potential. His business background means he is passionate about the need to promote the West of England and its unique offering, including its global connections and a highly-skilled workforce, nationally and internationally.

Before his election as Mayor, Tim was part of South Gloucestershire Council’s leadership team, working across the organisation with particular focus on policy and resources. He was also a parish councillor, and chairman of Winterbourne Parish Council for many years. He served 12 years as a governor of one of the largest secondary schools in the region, which led to his passionate belief that children should be encouraged to reach their full potential from a young age. He also sees lifelong skills development for all as essential to driving economic growth in the region.

Anders Broberg serves as a senior advisor on smart cities for Stokab, the municipal open-access broadband fibre network of the City of Stockholm. As a member of Stockholm’s City Council and executive committee, Anders led the effort to create Stokab in 1994 and served as its founding Chairman from 1999 to 2002. In addition to his experience with Stokab, Anders has served as the press officer for Almega, the Employers’ Organisation for the Swedish Service Sector, press officer for the Swedish Parliament and as a member of its Digital TV committee.

Andy Burnham was elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester in May 2017. Accountable to and representing the people of all 10 boroughs in Greater Manchester, Andy steers the work of Greater Manchester’s Combined Authority, leading on issues such as the economy, transport, police and fire services, to ensure Greater Manchester is one of the best places in the world.  

Responsible for transforming public services and shaping the future of our region, the Mayor represents Greater Manchester people, making the case for our region at the heart of government and on the world stage.

Andy is the chair and eleventh member of Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The leaders of the 10 councils form the Mayor’s Cabinet. He is also supported by a Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, and a Deputy Mayor for Economic Growth and Business.

Prior to this, Andy was MP for Leigh from 2001. In government, Andy has held Ministerial positions at the Home Office, Department of Health and the Treasury. In 2008 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, before returning to Health as Secretary of State in 2009. In opposition, Andy has served as Shadow Education Secretary, Shadow Health Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary.

Volker Buscher is Arup’s Global and UKIMEA Head of Digital Products, a member of Arup’s Group Board Digital Executive, where he is responsible for developing and launching new business models based on disruptive technologies. A Project Director for public and private sector clients in the UK, Europe, Middle East, US and SE Asia.

His responsibilities include:

• Identifying technology trends that have a disruptive impact on the built environment, our core markets and Arup’s business model
• Developing digital products and services that create value for our clients, Arup and our ecosystem of partners
• Engaging with key partners in the built environment to share through open innovation capabilities that improve our industry and make a contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Volker has experience as a non-Executive Director through his work on advisory boards including the Smart London Board advising the Mayor of London, the Smart Cities Forum advising UK Ministers for Cities and Technology, together with advisory roles for ISO, BSI, Digital Economy Catapult and the Canary Wharf Cognicity program.

He has worked extensively with academia. He is the co-chair for the Arup Foundation sponsored “Digital for Change (DC2)” programme at Cambridge University CSIC, acted as industrial supervisor for several doctorates with Bristol University, University College London, Imperial College London and worked as industry reviewer for research programs in Singapore.

Volker is the course Director of Arup University masters level course in Data Analytics and Smart Cities.

Andrew became Chief Executive of the Centre in April 2017. He is also Deputy Director of the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. Before that he was the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Policy and Research with overall responsibility for the Centre’s research and policy programme. Andrew has over 20 years of experience working on urban economic policy issues for public and private development agencies, consultants and research institutes.  He has also spent time in the US as part of the Churchill Foundation’s Fellowship Programme reviewing urban economic development policy and practice in American cities including New York, Washington DC, Boston and Chicago. He is a regular media contributor and chairs and speaks at conferences across the UK and Europe on a wide range of urban and economic issues.

As a member of the sales team, Moez Chaabouni leverages many years of experience in the CIO role to be a trusted adviser and advocate for customers and help their combined business and IT teams move quickly to empower transformational data automation initiatives leveraging the right components of the Informatica Intelligent Data Platform for Data Integration, Cloud Data Management, Big Data Management, Data Quality, Data Security and Master Data Management. Informatica provides leading data management software and services to help organizations worldwide gain control over one of their most important assets: Data!  Prior to Informatica, Moez served as deputy CIO for the City of Columbus, CIO of Hondross College and founder and CEO of My CIO, a consultancy.

Huey-Por Chang is currently the deputy mayor of Chiayi City, Taiwan. He is passionate on the public service as well as to work for his home town. However, he has taught senior high school and college for 12 years before he worked at two universities. He was a professor of the Department of Mass Communication and the president of the Open University of Kaohsiung between 2012 and 2016. From 2005 to 2012, he also served as the president of the National Changhua University of Education (NCUE). He was a professor of the Department of Physics at NCUE. Totally, his educational career lasted 45 years. His research interests include inquiry teaching, teachers’ professional development and teaching evaluation in science education. Recently, he wrote more than 60 opinion articles published in newspaper concerning challenging problems in education, environmental and societal issues, the improvement of life quality and democratization of Taiwan.

Dr. Michael Chang served in multiple leadership positions with the city of Tainan, the provincial government and national government of Taiwan. In Tainan City, he serves as Deputy Mayor and was previously Director-General of the Transportation Bureau. He has also served as Director for the Southwest Coast of the National Scenic Area Administration of the Tourism Bureau, as well as Director of the New York Office of the Bureau, for the national Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Prior to that, he served as Director of the Tourism Bureau and Chief Secretary of the Transportation Department of the Taiwan Provincial Government.

A graduate of Ohio State University, Michelle Crandall was director of administrative services for the City of Dublin for four years before being named Assistant City Manager. In addition to her dutes for Dublin, she is a member of the leadership team of the ICF Global Institute in Dublin, and Midwest vice president of the nonprofit ICMA.

Greg excels at relationship building, facilitating strategic partnerships, coordinating industry and sector initiatives, and forging substantive collaborations between the public and private sectors. Greg has been tasked with the development of strategic partnerships and alliances between communities and business sectors and is responsible for guiding the development of economic development strategies reflective of Winnipeg’s broad and diversified economy and manages north/south trade activities related to the Mid-Continent Trade Corridor. Greg holds director positions on a variety of bi-national and tri-national business development boards including the Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance (CAN/AM BTA) and NASCO (North American Strategy for Competitiveness). Greg has a Master’s Degree in City Planning from the University of Manitoba and has his Economic Development certification through the University of Waterloo. Listen to Greg on The Intelligent Community podcast.

Joyeeta started her career training as an engineer in India, before taking a job working at Cisco. Not long after, she founded Anahata Life and furthered her study with an MBA at the University of Oxford.

It was here where the idea of Gyana was initially conceived. Joyeeta was selected for two Innovate UK entrepreneur missions to the US and has now successfully brought Gyana to market. At one point they were even working without pay following a potential investor dropping out, and there were certainly many late nights. However like all strong entrepreneurs, Joyeeta stuck by her plans and continued her search for new investment. By January 2015 she had secured funding, and an additional £1.5 million was added in November 2015. By January the following year the team had swelled to 15 people, and in July 2016 her product was launched.

Gyana aims to bring AI and big data to consumers in an affordable way, and this is through its unique information search tool. The software looks to integrate data from numerous channels, such as social media, traffic updates and weather, to bring together a perspective about any selected area. This will include the trends of the area, the general attitudes and even emotional ‘vibe’. The concept of this tool is such that the more data input, the greater our understanding of the world around us. The aim is to help the likes of businesses, government and consumers to gain a genuine insight into specific areas and demographics. Click here to see an interview with Joyeeta from Innovate UK.

Kari Aina Eik is the Secretary General of the OiER – Organization for International Economic Relations, based in Vienna, Austria. The focus of OiER is to support both governments and businesses to strengthen cooperation and develop international networks, enhance and identify investment opportunities, and develop, implement and finance global projects in cooperation with UN agencies and other international organizations.

Ms. Eik is coordinating the USC (United Smart Cities) Program and the newly established SDG Cities Leadership Platform. She is currently the Co-Chair of REM, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Real Estate Advisory Board, and leader of U4SSC United for Smart Sustainable Cities, finance guideline deliverables.

Fred Eisenberger was born in Amsterdam and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was eight years old. His experience, vision and leadership led him to a successful return to office as Hamilton’s Mayor in October 2014. His passion for the city and plans for growth and prosperity support the desire to take Hamilton to new levels, firmly placing it as one of the 10 largest and most important municipalities in the country. Fred has previously served as a member of city council, Chair of the Hamilton Port Authority and as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Urban Institute.

Dr. Zeynep Engin is a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Dynamics Laboratory of UCL and the Founder of the international Data for Policy initiative. Zeynep’s research interests span a range of topics at the interface of data science and public policy. She is primarily interested in digital infrastructure and methodology development to collect and analyse data from heterogeneous sources in order to provide better evidence base to policy makers and planners. Her joint work with Professor Philip Treleaven focuses on ‘Algorithmic Government’ to automate public services and support civil servants in using artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies. The annual Data for Policy conference series that she has been leading since 2015 has proven to be a key international forum around the theory and applications of data science for government and policy research.

B4RN is a community owned "community benefit society" working to rollout FTTH to deeply rural properties in the parishes to the east of Lancaster. These are located in the upland areas of the Forest of Bowland AONB. This is a beautiful area but very sparsely populated with appalling broadband, many not spots and the rest are almost all grot spots. We are currently looking to raise £1.86M by issuing shares within the community to fund running 1Gbs FTTH to 1300 properties in 2012 and expanding to 5000 properties by 2014 subject to additional fundraising. In addition to his duties as CEO of B4RN, Mr. Forde is a Professorial Fellow of Lancaster University, NGA Advisory Group member and technical advisor to the Lancashire Digital Project.

Roberto Gallardo is Assistant Director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development and a Purdue Extension Community & Regional Economics Specialist. He holds an electronics engineering undergraduate degree, a master's in economic development, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration. Gallardo has worked with rural communities over the past decade conducting local & regional community economic development, including use of technology for development.

He has authored more than 70 articles including peer-reviewed and news-related regarding rural trends, socioeconomic analysis, industrial clusters, the digital divide, and leveraging broadband applications for community economic development. He is also the author of the book “Responsive Countryside: The Digital Age & Rural Communities”, which highlights a 21st century community development model that helps rural communities transition to, plan for, and prosper in the digital age. Dr. Gallardo is a TEDx speaker and his work has been featured in a WIRED magazine article, a MIC.com documentary, and a RFDTV documentary. He lives in West Lafayette with his wife and two daughters. Listen to Dr. Gallardo on The Intelligent Community podcast.

Soumya Ghosh is the Director, Digital Enablement with the City of Edmonton's Open City and Technology Branch. Soumya leads the business technology innovation portfolio with initiatives such as Smart City and Open City.

He is responsible for managing the award-winning open data program and developing the smart city strategy and proposal for the Infrastructure Canada’s Smart Cities Challenge. His latest project involves improving the health of Edmontonians through the use of data and smart technology.

Prior to joining the City, Soumya worked as an IT consultant with Fortune 500 companies such as Oracle Corporation, McKesson Corporation, and Deutsche Bank. He completed his MBA from the University of Alberta, has an Engineering Degree, and is PMP certified.

Rob van Gijzel served as the mayor of Eindhoven, Netherlands from 2008 to 2016, during which time the region was named an ICF Intelligent Community of the Year. He served in the Dutch Parliament from 1989 until 2001, when he founded a political advisory agency called Politea with his wife Irene van Rijsewijk. He also served as Deputy Chairman of the National Swimming Institute Eindhoven. Rob is a recognized thought leader in the Netherlands and beyond. He was appointed Chairman of the Collaboration Table, a national government body that seeks to improve access to and affordability of housing in the Netherlands. He is also the Chairman of the ICF Board of Directors.

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Stephen Hilton
Director, Bristol Futures Global
Who Cares About Open Data? (June 5)

Stephen Hilton is an internationally recognised smart cities expert. At Bristol City Council he created and led Bristol Futures, a high profile, award-winning team that achieved great success. The highlights include, winning the title of European Green Capital 2015; becoming the first UK Rockefeller Global 100 Resilient city; securing official designations as a UK Super Connected City and Future City Demonstrator; developing Engine Shed and Invest in Bristol & Bath, Bristol is Open and the Bristol-Brussels office; co-creating Playable City and securing funding for many successful projects on driverless cars, smart meters, smart grids, open data and large scale technology demonstrators. In his early career, Stephen worked on technology and democracy and digital inclusion, establishing the Connecting Bristol  partnership, the National Digital Challenge network and winning an award as Government Innovator of the Year for his work with the Oxford Internet Institute and Napier University.  Stephen is a Fellow at the University of Bristol's Cabot Institute.   He is also a non-exec Director of the Bristol Pound  - the leading local currency.