Jean-Francois Barsoum, Canadian Leader of Smarter Cities, Water and Transportation at IBM, joined Lou Zacharilla for this discussion. Since joining IBM, he has provided strategy advice to a diverse set of clients: financial institutions, higher education, professional associations, pharmaceutical companies and telecoms. Jean-Francois has also been invited to speak at conferences on the subjects of innovation, smarter transportation and climate change on four continents.

For the past decade, Jean-François has participated in numerous conferences on water and environmental management, led IBM's ties with some related research organizations and NGOs. He helped develop some core smarter cities concepts and has deepened IBM's involvement with several North American cities as a result. Jean-Francois is on the board of the Climate Reality Project and of the Canadian Water Network, and is a member of the David Suzuki Foundation's steering committee. He is also a member of the Intelligent Transportation Experts' Committee, a forum initiated by the Quebec Association of Transportation (AQTr).