Boston as the Model of Innovation – Again!

| Elizabeth Grossman

Photo: AOB Photo
Panelists: Daniel Castro, Vice President at ITIF, Azer Bestavros, Professor of Computer Science at Boston University, Elizabeth Grossman, Microsoft Tech & Civic Engagement Group, and Lauren Lockwood, Chief Digital Officer for the City of Boston. Photo: AOB Photo

Last Thursday, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and Boston University hosted an event in Washington DC on “The Cities of Tomorrow” which highlighted Boston’s innovation in strategic approaches to and execution of smart cities activities. The panel discussion featured Lauren Lockwood, Chief Digital Officer for the City of Boston, Azer Bestavros, Professor of Computer Science at Boston University, and Daniel Castro, Vice President at ITIF, and was moderated by me.

It was a robust discussion on topics like implementation processes for new smart city technologies, how to scale solutions within and among cities, approaches to inclusive design, policies around security and privacy, and models for public private partnerships.

Panelists: Lauren Lockwood, Chief Digital Officer for the City of Boston, Azer Bestavros, Professor of Computer Science at Boston University, Daniel Castro, Vice President at ITIF, and Elizabeth Grossman, Microsoft Tech & Civic Engagement Group. Photo: AOB Photo
Panelists: Elizabeth Grossman, Microsoft Tech & Civic Engagement Group, Lauren Lockwood, Chief Digital Officer for the City of Boston, Azer Bestavros, Professor of Computer Science at Boston University, Daniel Castro, Vice President at ITIF. Photo: AOB Photo

The audience, including representatives from Congress, agencies, think tanks, universities, and companies, heard about individual smart cities projects underway in Boston and elsewhere. At a broader level, the panel also discussed how cities like Boston are developing new programs and capacities to efficiently and inclusively identify how emerging digital capabilities can serve citizens, strengthen communities, and enable economic development. Lauren described the approach to the recent redesign of the Boston.gov website, including how the process built in accessibility and how it is being open sourced to enable others to examine and build on the Boston team’s learnings. The panel highlighted the range of new data sources being created about cities by public and private organizations, and Azer described BU’s Data Mechanics course where students are learning and sharing how to work with and gather insights from such data.

These are just a few examples from the conversation; you can see the video recording of the full discussion here.

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Elizabeth Grossman

As Director of Civic Projects in the Tech & Civic Engagement Group at Microsoft, Elizabeth works with teams in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle and the Bay Area, to build long-term partnerships in local communities and leverage Microsoft expertise and resources to make a sustainable and scalable impact on the pressing issues and challenges in these cities. Areas of focus include economic development and innovation, smarter and more sustainable cities, data and openness, and 21st century education and opportunities. Elizabeth is based in Washington, DC. Before this job, she worked on science and tech policy for universities, associations, and the U.S. House of Representatives. Her education balanced a Ph.D. in computational physics from the University of Chicago with a liberal arts undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College. Now she reads a lot of novels.