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Coaxing a city into the digital age :: Architecture leader at GE Digital, a mom, born in Pakistan, and the first woman of color to be elected to the San Ramon (CA) city council (republished from August 2019)

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Take a look at the San Ramon City Council’s official portrait and see what you notice. What’s hard to miss is four white men of about Boomer age standing shoulder to shoulder — and in line with them one young woman rising just above their belly height. She’s about to shake things up there by coaxing the city into the digital age.

She’s Sabina Zafar, architecture leader at GE Digital, a mom, born in Pakistan, and the first woman of color to be elected to the city council. She knew from the start her job wouldn’t be easy, as she’s found out since being elected in November 2018, later as vice-mayor.… Read the rest “Coaxing a city into the digital age :: Architecture leader at GE Digital, a mom, born in Pakistan, and the first woman of color to be elected to the San Ramon (CA) city council (republished from August 2019)”

“Dean of Big Data” Bill Schmarzo: “smart” takes a community :: Cash-strapped cities get help from volunteer coders (Reposted and updated)

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“I love civic tech,” says the data industry’s “Dean of Big Data” Bill Schmarzo, renowned data science and data monetization strategic advisor. He loves it, and he has ideas about how to make it work. It takes more than love to bear fruit.

Civic tech is possibly the most exciting aspect of “smart cities” today. Think of it: Cities want the technology to make them work better, but they have no money. What’s slightly more plentiful are talented young and not so young coders willing to help. Many of them are millennials, and they see a world that needs fixing.… Read the rest ““Dean of Big Data” Bill Schmarzo: “smart” takes a community :: Cash-strapped cities get help from volunteer coders (Reposted and updated)”

How New Orleans the “banana republic” may thrive again :: There’s a visionary path ahead from a fading oil-based economy to a burgeoning blue economy

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How do you bring a once-proud city back to life? In the last 100 years, New Orleans’s natural resources have been sucked out and taken away, and the profit almost entirely taken by outsiders.

The jewel of a city that New Orleans once was became colonized by Big Oil, which deposited wages and warped the local economy while it extracted wealth.

But one person in particular has looked closer. Veteran architect, urban planner, and economic development specialist Greg Delaune sees a better story ahead. He says the banana republic-like economy contains seeds for revival of the Gulf region’s “blue economy” — already worth an annual $3.8 billion and growing fast.… Read the rest “How New Orleans the “banana republic” may thrive again :: There’s a visionary path ahead from a fading oil-based economy to a burgeoning blue economy”