Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative
I will be traveling to India to meet with researchers at IIT Kanpur as part of our project on Sustainable Infrastructure Development that was funded through the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative. The project was developed while I was the Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech along with Ralph Hall and Michael Garvin. […]
Press Release – Assoc. Dean for Research at the College of Public Programs, Arizona State Univ.
For the complete announcement, please click here. I am a Sun Devil!
Conference on Community Resilience – Davos, Switzerland
I am headed to Davos for the 3rd Annual Conference on Community Resilience. I am co-chairing the conference along with John R. Harrald and Jim Bohland, both from Virginia Tech. This conference was organized while I was a Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. I will chair a session on Citizen Engagement & […]
Getting Serious About Resilience in Planning – in Planetizen
I co-authored an article for Planetizen with three students (Trevor Flanery, Jaimy Alex, and Eric Park) who were working at the Metropolitan Institute this summer. Resilience is a term much bandied about these days in the planning and development professions. Buildings, plans, economies and even cities are expected to be resilient to unforeseen externalities in a world of […]
Designing Resilient Cities
This diagram was prepared for a paper on designing resilient cities. Got thoughts? Please send me an email.
What is a Smart City?
Within the past 18 months the concept of smart (and intelligent) cities has been become popular in the media. For instance, Scientific American ran a special issue on smart cities. Industry players (e.g. IBM, Siemens, etc) have specific programs and practices dedicated to advancing the cause of building smart cities. Government agencies are dedicating resources […]
Presenting at the NSF Workshop on Participatory Challenge Platforms with a Public Intent
I had a wonderful time exchanging ideas with policy makers, researchers, practitioners, and even students at the NSF Workshop on Participatory Challenge Platforms with a Public Intent put on by the Center for Policy Informatics at Arizona State University. My formal remarks during the workshop drew on research results from our study of Challenge.gov. Since […]
Report now Available – Challenge.Gov: Landscape Analysis + Citizen and Agency Perspective
I have just completed the first draft of my report on the Challenge.gov platform. This paper has been a few months in the making and builds on my recent work in community intelligence platforms, citizen apps, and innovation in the public sector. To receive a copy of the report, please send me an email. Challenge.Gov: […]
Local Sustainability Planning and Harnessing the Power of Information Technologies
Information technologies have a critical role to play in advancing sustainability of our organizations, communities, cities, and nations. In the recent issue of PM Magazine (Vol. 94, No. 5, June 2012), Joe Schilling, Associate Director of the Metropolitan Institute, have a piece that looks at how local sustainability planning and the creative use of information technologies to build […]
Dean Jenkins, Creator of PapayaHead App, Second Place @ Department of Agriculture’s “Apps for Healthy Kids”
We are half-way through our research project on Citizen Apps. Below, you will find our findings from our conversation with Dean Jenkins who created the PapayaHead App. Developer: Dean Jenkins Bio: Dean holds an Executive MBA degree from the University of Washington. Prior to establishing PapayaHead, Inc. in 2006, Dean spent 14 years working as an Enterprise […]