ISCN Smart City Dialogue

The Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is promoting the development of digital twins for cities across the country. With a dedicated initiative for urban development policy named PLATEAU, the ministry brings together cities, science and industry to develop new ideas on how to harness the power of city twins with impressive virtual environments – from park management to improving emergency responses.

Hubert Beroche is the founder of Urban AI, a think tank specializing in the field of AI in the urban context. In this podcast episode, we’re discussing with Hubert Beroche, what role AI currently plays in cities in Europe and beyond, what use cases are emerging and what challenges are still to be addressed.

Brian Bidolli heads the Redevelopment Agency of Norwalk, Connecticut. In a move towards more sustainability and resilience, the city released a sustainability and resilience plan (SRP) with the ambition to become Connecticut’s greenest city. Among the biggest resilience challenges that the city is facing are extreme heat events and storms, as well as rising sea levels. As priorities Norwalk has set out to improve access for citizens to the waterfront and to open spaces and parcs, but also the redevelopment and transit-oriented developments. The use of data and digital infrastructure is the bracket binding together all these efforts.

Tiffany Davis is a seasoned expert in data and data governance for urban development. She worked as an Open Data Specialist in the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, advised the City of Baltimore and currently, she leads the AMALI Data Programme – an initiative to support cities in Africa in managing data for better urban planning and development.
In this interview, we’re discussing the role of data governance as a basis for every city and region to work with data.