Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Tamlyn Shimizu: Welcome to Smart in the City, the BABLE podcast, where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations. I'm your host, Tamlin Shimizu, and I hope you enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life. So we are here live in Madrid, and Babel has gotten the chance to invite international speakers as part of the partnership we have with the Global Mobility Call, and they have come and given exciting keynotes, insightful roundtables, and more. So in addition, we are also recording several podcast episodes as part of this collaboration. So I have to give a big thank you to Global Mobility Call for the partnership, and I'm excited that we're working closer and catching more innovation stories from the United States. Recently, you've seen more podcast guests coming on from the States, and those stories are really, really capturing the attention of many of the listeners, and they're really interesting for me, of course, as well, originally from the States, and all our guests today are here in Madrid, all the way from Illinois. So without further ado, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Mayor Richard Irvin. He is. Yeah. The mayor of the city of Aurora, Illinois. Welcome.
[00:01:22] Richard Irvin: Thank you for having me. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. Look forward to conversation.
[00:01:26] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. It's my pleasure. And with him today is his cio, his Chief Information officer, Michael Pegis. Welcome. Welcome, Michael.
[00:01:37] Michael Pegues: Buenos dias.
[00:01:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. Already practicing your Spanish. How's that coming?
[00:01:42] Michael Pegues: It's coming.
I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm trying to use my Italian and switch it over to Spanish a little.
[00:01:49] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, that works somewhat. Right. So good. Now to get a little bit warmed up. It's, you know, in the morning of the second day, we're, well, maybe a little tired, so we need a little energy to get warmed up into the interview. My question to both of you, and you can pick different ones, is if Aurora. Aurora were an animal, which animal would it be and why?
[00:02:13] Richard Irvin: Wow, that's a good one. If Aurora were an animal, what animal would it be? Well, I have a couple that come to mind. One, because a horse, because that's just my favorite animal, because I like how horses just run wild and free.
But I would have to say we would be an eagle because we're soaring to new heights that we haven't ever gone to before.
[00:02:36] Tamlyn Shimizu: A bald eagle or a different type.
[00:02:38] Richard Irvin: Of E.
I'm going to go with a Bald eagle, because that's the first one that pops to my head. But any large bird of prey that spreads its wings and flies, that's Aurora right now.
[00:02:48] Tamlyn Shimizu: Perfect.
[00:02:49] Michael Pegues: And Michael, I'm going to go with a mythological creature, say a phoenix, because as the mayor always says, that we're going through a renaissance and we're rising from the ashes to create something new, and that's Aurora.
[00:03:04] Tamlyn Shimizu: Cool. I like that dynamic. Both going with birds, basically, things that can fly is our theme there. Right. So now I like to give the chance for the listeners to know a little bit more about you as people, to get to know your background and your story.
So maybe, Richard, you can start, tell me about where you came from, your background, what led you into your role today.
[00:03:31] Richard Irvin: My background is surprising to some people when I tell them based on where I'm at now and where I've come from. I grew up in low income housing, public housing in the city of Aurora with a single teenage mother that raised me and my brother. She actually had me when she was 16 years old and my brother when she was 17. So we were involved in gangs. And the community that I grew up in was it wasn't that there were bad people, it was just that that was the environment. Everybody that was in gangs and didn't really have any direction or focus for the future. I was a terrible high school student. You know, I barely graduated. But after I did graduate, by the skin of my teeth, I joined the United States army. And that's what gave me the foundation of who I am today. And while I was in the Army, I served. I was deployed to Desert Shield, Desert Storm, to Saudi Arabia in the first Gulf War. And while I was there, I faced a circumstance where I thought I was going to die. And I was only, you know, not much more than a teenager, 19, 20 years old. And in that circumstance, I had a conversation with God that if I didn't die on this particular day, that I would spend the rest of my life giving back and making a difference. So I've been in public service for the rest of my. For my whole life since then. I survived the war, I came back. I was the first one in my family to go to college, put myself through college. And I decided I wanted to become a lawyer. My mother looked at me like I had a third eye in my head. You know, we're not, we're not doctors and lawyers. We're from the hood, you know, but, you know, I put myself through law school and graduated, became a prosecutor for a number of years. For five years. And I owned my own law practice for 15 years. While I was engaged in my law practice, I was elected as an alderman, a city council person, and I was that for 10 years during the time I was a practicing lawyer. And then seven years ago, seven and a half years ago, I was elected the first African American mayor of the city of Aurora in 185 years.
So since then, and I remember the day I swore in in 2017, I said, even though I am the first African American mayor, I'm going to be the mayor for everyone. Black, white, Latino, Indian, Asian. I'm going to be the people's mayor, the community's mayor. And that has been my focus to make a difference for all the residents of the city of Aurora. And I think we've made a difference.
[00:06:00] Tamlyn Shimizu: Incredible story. Thanks so much for sharing. Really, really interesting background. So glad that you're here with us today.
Now, Michael, please also tell us about your background. Where did you come from? How did you end up in this role today?
[00:06:15] Michael Pegues: So my story is very similar to the mayor's since we grew up together, known each other since we were like four or five years old. He's my stepbrother.
And actually I was a horrible high school student too. I have Cs. I barely graduated as well back in 1988. But when I did graduate, we actually both went to the military. I went a month after he did and stayed in the military for four years. Did my boot camp here in the United States and also went to jump school at Fort Benning. And then I went overseas. I was stationed in Vicenza, Italy. The mayor was stationed in Germany. So I did four years in the military. I served during the Gulf War. Didn't go to the Gulf War, but got out in 1992. And I came back. And actually I was the first person in my family to actually to go to college as well.
I went and got a bachelor's of science in computer science.
Did that for like four years while I was going to school at night and working during the day.
In 1997, I decided to go back overseas where I did my military service. And I worked for the Department of Defense as a federal employee. It was my first job as an automation management officer, working there at the military installation.
Did that for like three years.
After that, in like 2000, I decided I took a job with Hewlett Packard, actually in Grenoble, France, outside of Lyon. I did that for four years. After that, I ended up going back to Italy again where Ram owned business for like six years between 2004 and 2010, right after the financial crisis. And I decided to move to Budapest in 2010, took a job at a telecommunications company, Vodafone, doing cybersecurity for two years. Then I got an offer. I just came out of nowhere from Morgan Stanley as a VP to run their infrastructure and also cyber delivery. Did that until 2016. And I decided, hey, you know what? It's time to come back home to Aurora. And when I came back, I was still working for Morgan Stanley. I was actually a New York employee. And at the time, the mayor was running for his election. And I was inspired to say, you know what I think, you know, this whole public service thing, I was thinking from a different perspective because I came from the private sector.
I was a little like, I'm not sure, you know, the public sector, I think the mindset is different. But I believed in the vision. And again, we grew up in Aurora. So seeing, you know, Aurora in, when we grew up and, you know, when the mayor was running and having been able to make an impact and change things, especially from my background working with technology and looking at it, how can we make Aurora a smart city? And then I decided to come work at the city of Aurora in July 2017, and I've been there ever since and never looked back.
[00:09:17] Tamlyn Shimizu: Do you miss the private sector?
[00:09:19] Michael Pegues: I do. I remind myself I'm basically a private sector executive just on loan to the public sector because my mindset is still about execution and ROI and how we can invest.
[00:09:33] Tamlyn Shimizu: I actually think from my experience, I've talked with so many different people from various backgrounds, and I found that the people coming from private sector have a really unique perspective when they go into public service. That's really vital for them to take forward for their mission. So thanks for, thanks for sharing. Also, really incredible background. So really happy to have you here and telling your story. So thanks so much.
[00:09:55] Michael Pegues: Thank you.
[00:09:57] Tamlyn Shimizu: Talking about that vision, Richard, can you talk about the vision that you have for Aurora? What is the vision of the city? How are you positioning the city? What is next for Aurora?
[00:10:10] Richard Irvin: You know, my vision is to make Aurora one of the greatest cities in the state of Illinois, arguably one of the greatest in the country.
And I do that by focusing on three pillars and I call these my three pillars of success. And it's a very simple acronym, cse.
And these acronym stands for Safety, Education and Economy.
Everyone wants to live in a safe community. You know, to be able to walk whenever you walk around, whenever you want to let your kids go outside and play and that's an issue in the states and many communities where it's not safe. Aurora was once noted as one of the most violent cities per capita in America. Now we are lauded as one of the safest cities in America.
And that's great. We have the strongest and most advanced police department that we've had ever in the history with more police officers in the force using the technology that Mr. Piggies here has implemented and helped them do their job. So now we're safe. And the image and perception we had so many years ago of being this violent, gang banging, drug dealing city is gone. And it's almost like it never existed. So safety is the first letter in the academy, education is the second letter. Everyone wants, everyone with children, with the family, wants their kids to have opportunity for success in the future. The only way to ensure that is to have a good educational foundation. Now we have six different school districts. Our community is broken up into school districts where they have it's their own governing body. The city doesn't control it. As mayor, I don't control our school districts, but I recognize I needed to partner.
So once I became mayor, I created what's called the education commission, bringing all of our school districts together, working with the mayor's office, sharing best practices, ideas, resources. And school districts that struggle, that only graduated at one point, 68% of their of their young people now are up over 90% graduation rate and going toward, you know, almost 100% graduation rate. All of our school districts, no matter where you live in our city, we have a 50 square mile city, second largest city in the state of Illinois.
No matter where you go, our kids are have the strong, good, equitable opportunity, competitive opportunity for education in the future. The last E of the acronym C is economy. We want to make sure we have jobs, growth and opportunity in our city. We've done more economic development in my seven and a half years as mayor than all the mayors put together collectively. Over the last 70 years, we filled old empty buildings, we've brought new residential, we bought new businesses, new restaurants, new excitement, new synergy. And we've expanded the tax base so our taxpayers don't have to pay as much. Matter of fact, we reduced our property tax rate by the growth that we have. So safety, education, economies, it's so clear, see?
[00:13:18] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, clear, very clear. I'm wondering where does A, mobility and B, together with that climate intersect with that?
[00:13:28] Richard Irvin: I think mobility, mobility falls within the economic development, the E, the economy. And the reason I say that is because there's got to be an investment. And there's going to return on your investment based on the transportation and mobility from one point to the next. In our city, how do we move people from. Our city is broken up. Let me back up a little bit. Our city is broken up into urban centers. We've got three defined urban centers and the rest of it is suburban. Meaning it takes a while to drive to the grocery store. It takes a while to get to where you want to get. So how do I get those people safely to these urban centers? Spending money all the way. So it falls in the economic portion. And how do, how do we, and where do we get the money to invest in that mobility, in that transportation? And we want to focus on net zero emission transportation. So we focus on, you know, making sure we keep the environment clean.
And so that's a difficult proposition. It's very, it has to happen. But it's challenging because people don't recognize what they need for the future. They're focused on right now. And today we have to make a huge investment, hundreds of millions of dollars that people have to pay for tomorrow. And many people don't want to do that. So it's a vision we've got to create and get people to buy into that vision so we can build for tomorrow.
[00:15:01] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, very good point. To play devil's advocate a little bit also with when you talk about economy, there's a lot of people that might say, okay, it's, you want people to spend money, right. You want people to invest in the economy to foster this economic growth.
How does that relate to also trying to preserve our climate? Because that plays into consumerism or other things along those lines.
[00:15:27] Richard Irvin: And that's a very good point and a very good question.
Because when you talk about economy and you talk about investment, when you also look at, you know, the, our environment and making sure that we build green and we build sustainable and we build for the future to make sure our kids have, you know, a clean earth to live on. That's extra money. That's an additional investment. So that's part of the vision to explain to people why we need to invest additional money for the environment today. So we, our children, and our children, children have an earth where they can breathe the air tomorrow.
[00:16:09] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:16:10] Richard Irvin: And it's challenging, but it's something that we definitely focus on.
[00:16:13] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely. Now, Michael, he's talking about the vision for the city. What's the vision for the smart city within that? What's around the data, around all the technological layers.
[00:16:27] Michael Pegues: So as you just heard the mayor talk about those pillars, I always like to say the technology is the underpinning foundation, three of those pillars. There's nothing that we don't do today that doesn't involve technology in some aspect or another. So again, that's why it's very important to have that technology as the foundational piece to help drive those pillars. One of the other things that I wanted to also kind of piggyback on with regards to the sustainability, the mayor's also created what we call the Aurora Innovation and Technology Commission. That commission has been developed to also to look at emerging technologies, but also innovations. And one of the other things we're looking at is kind of the green piece, or I like to say the sustainability development goals that have been developed by the European Union. And we have a young lady by the name of Ashley Gokland who's the vice chair, who's helping us spearhead that. And look at those 17 goals. And one of those goals is climate. Another goal is water and is focused around that green initiative. So that's another initiative that we're also looking at because it's not just about the tech. It's all about the innovation also behind it. And innovation come in many different ways.
[00:17:42] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely.
[00:17:43] Richard Irvin: And let me jump in there just a little bit, because oftentimes when you say smart city, people don't understand what that means. And what's the purpose of focusing on a smart city? And I'll just. From a mayor's perspective, and I'm sure Michael will have, you know, different perspective as a cio.
From a mayor's perspective, a smart city is using technology to improve and better the quality of life for all of our residents. And that's how can we use technology to make things as easy as possible for people to live, work and play in their. In their community?
And the smarter we are, the more better quality of life our people will have. But again, Michael may have a different perspective of why we have a smart city.
[00:18:31] Michael Pegues: Right. And my perspective is the same. It's just from a different lens. So what is a smart city? My definition is when you take information communications and technology to make your city safer, to make it run better in terms of services, to make it more connected, and to make it more prosperous. But again, it falls back to the mayor's pillars. So using that technology to drive a safer city, a more connected city, a more efficient city, and a more prosperous cities.
[00:19:02] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, perfect.
I want to. Sometimes it's difficult. It's like picking a favorite child. But I would like to ask you about a favorite project or initiative of yours that you would like to speak about? Maybe, Michael, you want to start with a project that you feel very passionately about that's useful to share the learning.
[00:19:22] Michael Pegues: Yeah, yeah. I've been working on this since I've been at the city and I call it, it actually has many names. It's the Internet for all broadband as a utility. But we're going to stick with the Internet for all. And basically what it is, it's a forward thinking economic development strategy to make sure that we have all our residents, all our businesses, we have our visitors and we have our public safety and our government services connected on our broadband infrastructure. We have a 40 mile fiber optic ring around the city and it has about 120 miles of laterals. It connects throughout the four counties which Aurora sits in. Four counties. And we have fiber optic going all the way back downtown Chicago to the, we call it the Internet hub, which is the Equinix data center. So all the telecommunications lines for the, for the Midwest come through this data center.
We also have the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange that sits in Aurora and it's there, it was established back in 2009 to use our fiber optic infrastructure to do high frequency trading, again revenue generation, but using the city's assets to basically to communicate and do all the futures and sales trading for the Chicago Stock Exchange change.
[00:20:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: So really interesting. And what's, what's coming next for that project?
[00:20:55] Michael Pegues: So with that project we're looking to extend 700 miles of fiber optic throughout the city to pass all 63,000 residents and businesses. So we're going to connect all the residents and we're going to basically provide Internet services for an affordable price. Yeah, the same way that when you walk into your home and you turn on the lights or you turn on the tap to get water or you turn on your gas, that's a utility and that's a service that as a city that needs to be provided to you. Now broadband or the Internet is the fourth utility. And now everybody feels that again, that's something that it should be there on demand and it should be ubiquitous. So that's what we're looking to do. And basically to extend the fiber out to all these different residents, businesses, visitors and to provide that Internet, I'd say inclusivity for our entire city.
[00:21:50] Tamlyn Shimizu: I love it. So important when you're looking at how the city is connected. I want to ask you also maybe what is one key learning from that project? Would you do anything differently if you were to do it over Again, well.
[00:22:06] Michael Pegues: Actually, this is, I would say, the third iteration. That in terms of the model, because it goes back, how is this going to be funded?
A lot of different municipalities and counties and state. They're waiting for money to come down from the federal government as part of the Biden infrastructure, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Yeah, that takes time because we know government is inherently a little slow.
So we've looked at it from a perspective of a public private partnership and to give funding outside of the city to help fund that and invest in the city over a period of 30 or 40 years to basically set that up for our future generations. And it is an investment.
[00:22:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Really, really interesting one. Do you have one as well, Richard?
[00:22:55] Richard Irvin: You know, as mayor, I have the. I'm fortunate to be able to work on all of those projects, you know, some levels.
[00:23:02] Tamlyn Shimizu: Right.
[00:23:02] Richard Irvin: At some level. So I've been working on this project. Of course, Michael has been spearheading this project, but I come from the administration portion. How do we make this work? This is the vision. How do we pull all the pieces of the puzzle together to make this work? And how do we get the buy in from others in my administration as well as my city council members who are going to have to vote on this? And they are. They make their decisions based on the community and the response. So my job is to kind of be the cheerleader and the person directing, making sure the director of all these different musical pieces playing of the orchestra to make sure it all makes beautiful music comes together and sounds good for the people that are going to be receiving this. Because people always say, you know, we don't have that now. Why do we need that? You know, And I was just thinking as Michael was talking, there was not long ago, 10 years ago, we didn't all have smartphones just 10 short years ago, but now almost every household has a smartphone. And 10 years ago, there were people that said, why do we need that? Why is that important? It becomes just part of our life, as now we recognize we should have had this the whole time. And let's go back even a little bit further than that. When Ford invented the first car and put it into production, the Model T, there were people that were driving horse and buggies that says, why do we need that car? Why do we need that? We've never had it. We've been just fine. But now everybody, every family, every household, you know, has a car across the world. So people don't know what they don't know at the time.
But once we come up with a Vision and we have, and then we implement this vision and put in a practice, people are going to say, man, we should have had this the whole time. And if you try to take it away from them, there's no way. We love this now. So that's always the challenge of being visionaries, you know, and having new ideas and new innovations. One of the innovations that will be focusing on, you know, I've been mayor seven and a half years. There are four year terms. In my next four year term, I'll be focusing on net zero emission transportation systems throughout our city for, you know, for the, for the environment, for transportation ease to get people from one location to the next without having to deal with congested traffic and the pollution in the air. But again, this is going to take hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government. So I've got to convince the federal government level folks to assist the state government folk. And I've got to convince my local people that this is what we need for our future. Challenging, not impossible, but definitely, definitely hard work, but it's worth it when we have the end result of this net zero emissions transport transportation system that easily moves our residents and our citizens throughout our community.
[00:26:05] Tamlyn Shimizu: Amazing. With all the projects that you have your hands in on the upper level, what do you think has been the key of either success or failure in projects?
[00:26:17] Richard Irvin: I would say it's having a strong team of committed and intelligent people. And sometimes Mike and I have to convince our own people to get on board with these new visions and new ideas. But once we convince them, and I'm not going to say it's easy, but once we do, you know, I think we have a strong team of people that come together and make things happen. I always say if I'm the smartest person in the room, we got a problem, you know, So I need to surround myself with the most committed, intelligent and capable people that I can find to get the job done. And again, this is government. This isn't the private sector where they're paying people a whole lot of money. But for my relationship with Michael, there's no way he would leave the private sector working for companies like Morgan Stanley to come take a huge pay cut and work for government. But because of my relationships and because I can identify, I don't have many talents, I say, but one of my talents is recognizing other people's talents. And because of my ability to recognize people's talents and where to plug them into the hole, I think we've pulled together a great team and we get things Done.
[00:27:18] Tamlyn Shimizu: Amazing. I really believe in that power as a leader to recognize other people's talents. I think that's so, so very important.
So, Michael, you're using real time data systems in your work, correct?
[00:27:33] Michael Pegues: That is correct.
[00:27:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: Can you get, can you give me a specific example of how real time data is helping to improve lives of citizens in Aurora?
[00:27:44] Michael Pegues: Absolutely. And let me just give a quick kind of history lesson here. Also, when I came in in 2017, we put in place a plan to actually create a data and analytics team. It did not exist before. So the data analytics team was created back in 2018, late 2018. Now we have a director of data analytics. We have data analysts, we have data engineer. Their objective is to look and pull and integrate all the data in the city to be able to provide it in our open data portal, to create dashboards for internal use and also for public use and also for the mayor's office using that data and looking at it from different perspectives to basically gain insights. So that way the mayor's office, the department heads or whoever can have that data to make decisions based on operations or trying to be predictive in terms of their daily work. So that open data platform again, and it's built off of the mayor's three pillars, the safety, education, and also economic development. And it's layered at different levels so you can look at that data, you know, 360 degrees in different ways, pulling information.
I would say back to your question. In terms of having an impact, I would say it's probably on the public safety side because that's where we really started. And using that data, like crime stats, we also have data that's being pulled also from body cams. We have data being pulled off of like the streets, the video streams.
I would say what would be, I'm thinking from the public safety side and the police chief, what they use the day, they also use data for hiring, also for professional standards, different aspects throughout public safety. Also they use it for 911 dispatch. For example, if there's a call and say there's a house call, there's a disturbance, the 911 dispatchers can pull the data and look at the data form from a specific address and say, is there some type of violation or you know, were there recent calls? And look at the data surrounding just connecting those different pieces to basically to have some predictive analytics to try to anticipate to be able to provide a better service to that individual calling because it probably life or death as well. So again, we're saving lives and as, and as, and as the police chief says that they depend on the technology so much that it's become a force multiplier for them.
[00:30:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: And if you took it away, they would complain, right?
[00:30:38] Richard Irvin: Absolutely.
[00:30:38] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:30:39] Richard Irvin: The residents would definitely complain because now they have this better quality of life because of the, you know, the safety that they feel in their community. And when Michael was first implementing these things and working with the police, saying that they needed this technology to help them, you know, for the future. And although, you know, our command, our chief and our command staff agreed and looked at this as a tool, our residents and the people voting on this didn't necessarily recognize the value at that time, even though it's a clear outcome of the implementation because of the low crime rates that we had.
And now, you know, those same people that talked against it and voted against it, they just take it for granted that the crime stopped. They say, oh, it just stopped because it stopped. Well, no, it's not magic. This stuff didn't just fall the sky, you know, it's because of the vision and the implementation of a plan that made all this happen. When people forget what it used to be, quickly they forget.
[00:31:36] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
Can you elaborate a little bit more on the dashboards?
What does that look like? What kind of dashboards?
[00:31:43] Michael Pegues: So the dashboards, if we take the. Let's take for economic development, we have data in there in terms of the buildings, businesses resident, the permitting. So if someone wants to come into the city of Aurora and understand the landscape of the city of Aurora, where do I get my permit? You know, where is this property available? Is that a city owned property? You know, what plots of land, they can go to our dashboard and all that information is readily available without them having to come in to our development services center who actually manage it. So making that data accessible for a potential developer who might be looking and prospecting Aurora out to be their next headquarters, they can take that information quickly and easily and then start to make plans and trying to decide, you know what, Aurora is right for me. Right. It's right for my business.
[00:32:39] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really interesting. Yeah.
So, Richard, with all these advancements, innovation, all that, it's really exciting. I get excited about it too, and I think that there's a lot of possibilities, but sometimes innovations can also disproportionately benefit certain community members while leaving others behind. So can you speak a little bit to how you're ensuring inclusivity and equity in these advances?
[00:33:06] Richard Irvin: We created a diversity equity and inclusion department under my administration to ensure just that as a matter of fact, the project that Michael's talking about, broadband or Internet for all, ensures that no matter where you are in our city, no matter what your, how much you make per year, what your economic status are, whether you're some of the poorest folk in our city or the richest folk, you're still going to have that access and ability to, you know, to have this Internet. Right now not everybody has that equal access to city of Aurora, but we're going to insure it by having Internet for all. And we saw during COVID and I know it seems like such a long time ago, it is only a couple years ago we dealt with this throughout the world where folks that were not as financially stable didn't have the same opportunity for things that, you know, the other folks that were a little bit more financially stable, especially because people were off work and sitting at home for a year, you know. So what we're trying to do is make equity. It created equal playing field. You know, there's, we live in a capitalist society in the United States of America. There's always going to be haves and have nots. But what we want to do is create an equal playing field just to give the opportunity, at least open that door for people to have the potential for success in the future.
[00:34:27] Michael Pegues: Also, I want to add in terms of the inclusivity with the Internet for All project, we are planning to go into our disenfranchised neighborhoods first. A lot of times historically with some of the larger telecom providers, I'll leave them unnamed, they tend to cherry pick and go into the fluent neighborhoods to get a quick return on investment.
And they don't build out the infrastructure in the disenfranchised communities, leaving them without. Those are the have nots.
[00:34:59] Richard Irvin: And I'll say this, some of the partners that we're working with, at least early on, they wanted to go into the more affluent neighborhoods first to get the return on investment, to then use the revenue to go into the poor neighborhoods. And we said, absolutely not. We've got to start in those disenfranchised neighborhoods. Otherwise, you know, how do we justify it? If we can help the least of us first, you know, and we have spread it out to some of the more fluent areas, but we definitely want to focus on those areas where it's the most, where there's the most need.
[00:35:32] Tamlyn Shimizu: How did you convince them then?
[00:35:34] Michael Pegues: Well, going back, because the mayor made it very clear we want to hit the disenfranchised communities first. Now I'm not gonna lie, it was difficult. It's very difficult trying to figure it out because as he says, everything costs money.
[00:35:49] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:35:49] Michael Pegues: So we're trying to balance that as a. And what we did was we went and looked at our deployment roadmap in those disenfranchised communities. But we looked and identified through our census tracts using our data from our open data platform, that there were 4,500 businesses within a thousand miles of our deployment plan going into those disenfranchised neighborhoods. So we said, let's capture that revenue to offset the cost so we can still go into a disenfranchised communities, but at the same time generate revenue so we have equilibrium.
[00:36:24] Tamlyn Shimizu: Clever. Yeah. Really, really interesting study.
So, Richard, also US is maybe not known for having the best public transportation in comparison to Europe, for example. So what lessons do you want to take back, especially related to transport, but also maybe broader related to innovation or otherwise? What lessons are you wanting to take back from Europe to the U.S. well.
[00:36:51] Richard Irvin: Whenever I go on these conferences yearly to get new ideas and take them back to the United States, back to my city, specifically because I always say there's no need to recreate the wheel. If somebody else is doing it right, identify who it is and bring those, and bring those right ways back to your community, to my community.
So what I've seen is the importance and value of transportation and making sure we can get our residents, our citizens from one location to the other and have them spending money along the way. Because at the end of the day, that's what we're. That's why I'm in government for the people. But we can't help the people without revenue, without money to support those, their needs. And so what I learned today, the value of making the upfront investment, even though it's going to be hard and it's going to be hard to convince people that, to give them something that they've never had and convince them that, yes, this is good for you and yes, you want this, even though you don't think you want it and you need it, even though you don't think you need it. Convince them. And I've seen some ideas on how to, how to get over that hump and those challenges of, of impressing upon people the need for, you know, this, this transportation we have in the future.
[00:38:06] Tamlyn Shimizu: Isn't this a cultural battle in the US in convincing people they, they don't need to take their car?
[00:38:13] Richard Irvin: Well, not only cultural, you know, it. We have the, some of the biggest car countries, car companies in the world, manufacturers in the world that put Commercials on every day saying that cars are your status symbol.
[00:38:25] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah.
[00:38:25] Richard Irvin: And it's, you need one, maybe you even need two or three to a household and go out and buy one as soon as you can. So, you know, to change how we think about transportation and how we think about, you know, getting people from one location to the next and how we do it, especially now with, with more, with the car companies building electric vehicles. So they're giving us even more. They're saying, you know what, we still want you to buy a vehicle, but it's not going to ruin, you know, it's not going to ruin the world and it's going to be good for the environment. Buy this, you know, or buy a couple of them. But still, how do we change people's mindset and go back to the days where maybe a family only had one car instead of two or three, or where a family used public transportation instead of going out to their garage, jumping in their car? You know, how do you make it just as convenient for people to take public transportation together versus just going, you know, going and sticking their key in their own, in their own ignition and driving off? Yeah, again, it's a challenge, but it's something, it's something we got to work on together. And it's not going to happen just by one person saying, we've got to, we've got to, you know, speak in unison for those that are interested in this and then say, look, this is why we have to do it together.
[00:39:38] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, it's absolutely a convenience factor. Right. In making it so convenient for people that they want to take that option. At the same time, you're focused a lot on economics, obviously that's your last letter in economics. And you're fostering an innovation arena, let's say, in Aurora. So how are you attracting private part companies, startups to collaborate in Aurora?
[00:40:09] Richard Irvin: And I think it's about relationships.
It started off with creating a relationship with a developer, an investor that is willing to take a chance because he trusts the vision that we've created for the city of Aurora. And that person knows that once you invest in Aurora, we've got your back. Meaning we're going to work to ensure your success because your success, business owner is our success, success in the city of Aurora. And that's not often looked at at government. Government sometimes looks at, you know, our businesses and our residents as the enemy. You know, how do we get away with doing the least as possible for the people that we're supposed to serve and for the businesses that we rely on for our tax base. It shouldn't be that we got to change the way, you know, the narrative and the way we think about it and say, listen, we're all in this together. Their success is our success, period. So it's like a domino effect. Once you get that first developer in and they realize there's a return on their investment, that first domino falls and the others fall after it. Because other investors and developers say, hey, what's going on over there in Aurora? I want to be a part of that. We create a synergy and excitement that, you know, that once we start building one, the rest will come.
[00:41:19] Tamlyn Shimizu: Does it have something to do with branding? I guess, like, really strong branding?
[00:41:23] Richard Irvin: Absolutely. Strong branding. And we have some very strong branding partners and some folks and marketing partners in the city. Matter of fact, the first year, our brand was. There's something happening here. Can you feel it?
[00:41:38] Tamlyn Shimizu: I like it.
[00:41:39] Richard Irvin: People are like, what's happening there? Yeah, I would go feel it too.
[00:41:44] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, very good. How have you attracted any European companies? I'm curious.
[00:41:48] Richard Irvin: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. We meet with European companies all the time that want to, you know, not necessarily relocate, but start an American branch in Aurora.
I mean, you name it, we've got it. Whether it's Asian companies, European companies. We met with some folks from Germany not too long ago, France, I'm sorry, Italy. And, you know, we try to give them, incentivize them to want to come to America. Now, again, our tax structures is set up a little bit differently. So, you know, it gives pause to some folks. But in creating the synergy and excitement about Aurora and attracting people back to Aurora, they have a strong workforce. So our workforce development efforts are, you know, you know, are key, you know, to our success for the future.
[00:42:36] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely. So I always like to ask also on what do you see in the future as the biggest challenges that your city is facing? And which tools do you think you're missing or tool that you're missing to really accelerate that change? I want to hear both of your.
[00:42:52] Richard Irvin: Perspectives so I can break this down. Simply, what tool? Because we've changed our image and perception so people want to come be a part of Aurora. We've convinced or partnered with developers to create the synergy for the development for people to want to build in Aurora.
So one of the key problem that we have now is access to money, money, money, money and capital. Because when businesses come to Aurora to invest, they want us to have skin in the game. They want us to be a partner in the investment. Why would someone come and invest Tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars in Aurora if Aurora is not willing to step up and be part of this in a public private partnership. So you know, of course our, the dollars we have are finite. You know, it's based on our, the number of people in the taxing body that we have. You know, so the taxing pool that we have. So unless we're going to raise taxes, unless we're, you know, we're going to, you know, just come up with, there's no way. Where do you get the money from? You know, we rely on the federal government. You know, often, oftentimes they give us grants, but again it depends on the administration. What is the prior of the administration? We get grants from the state government, but again, what is the priority of the then administration? Do they recognize the value of assisting a municipality so we can grow and thus help the state and thus help the country? But you know, again, different priorities for different leaders. So our problem is accessible access to money.
[00:44:27] Tamlyn Shimizu: Access to money. Money talks. Michael, do you see it the same way?
[00:44:30] Michael Pegues: I mean, absolutely. I mean the mayor articulated it very well. However, there's one thing that I see is that, well, Aurora traditionally has been a manufacturing town up until when was it 2016.
The major employer there was Caterpillar. They closed their doors, lost a lot of workers and the economy took a dip. It transitioned into more of a, I say a service based industry. I think one thing, and we have to look a little bit ahead into the future generations. I think it's about the gig economy. People are working more and more from home with telemedicine, with social media. Like we're here today, right? With these different industries, people can work anywhere. That's the power behind connectivity and broadband. I think we have to build for those future economies, even though we don't really see it, but we're building now as we speak. The Internet itself makes us global. I mean you could be anywhere in the world and still work. I mean that's what we're doing. So I think building that gig economy, building for the future and trying to get more individuals within our community who actually go to school and then they end up staying there, buying a home there, you know, raising a family there. But they could be working with a company that's maybe on the west coast or maybe in Europe somewhere. I think building around that and focusing on that is going to help our economy be a lot more sustainable long term and it'll be a lot more resilient. We won't be dependent on a major like manufacture, like Caterpillar or Amazon. And if they close their doors, oh, there's a dip in economy. But if we build for that gig economy, that makes us a lot more sustainable long term.
[00:46:21] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good point. I actually want to ask you about how you're building in preparation for the big changes that AI is already bringing.
[00:46:30] Michael Pegues: The mayor and city council just approved a partnership with a. With a very large consultation with a consulting firm in 2025 in Q1, we're going to be launching our AI policy strategy and roadmap for the future to see how we implement AI into government services. A lot of it would be focused more on productivity. We're not looking at replacing any jobs. We're looking at upskilling individuals to see how we can use AI to increase productivity and operational efficiency and also how that impacts the community going forward. Because again, we're trying to impact the quality of life for our residents and our employees, our visitors and our businesses. And again, we're in the fifth Industrial revolution right now when there's this interconnection between artificial intelligence and society. And we have to be cognizant of that, and we have to start planning for that right now. So this initiative will help us do that, and we're going to be moving that forward.
[00:47:29] Tamlyn Shimizu: Amazing. Anything that we didn't get the chance yet to talk about? We talked about a lot of things. I think we covered a lot of ground. But now's your chance. Also, if you feel like we missed something. That's really important for our listeners to know now is the open floor, in case you want to take it.
[00:47:45] Richard Irvin: You know, I don't think we've missed anything. I think we've covered a lot today. But, you know, I just want to reiterate the point of why we're. We do what we do in government, and at the end of the day, it's all about people. Everything we do is about people. How do we make that individual, that human being's life better? You know, how do we help people to get along with each other? How do we help people to get to transport and move around? You know, our community, our city? It's about people.
Everything is about people. And we tend to forget that sometime. You know, I get up every morning, you know, and go to work because I want to make people's lives better. I want to make a difference in a person's life.
And, you know, we need money to do it, we need resources to do it. We need. But everything we do is for the people. And sometimes maybe I Even forget that, you know, you know. But, you know, it's important when we have conversations like this, we come back to the basics and recognition, recognize why we're in this. And we're in this to make a difference for people just like you.
[00:48:50] Michael Pegues: And that's why we're here in Madrid, because we're engaging with people with new perspectives. You had talked about from a perspective like, what will we take away from this trip? And again, meeting new people with different perspectives that we can take back and potentially implement. Maybe it's not one solution, maybe it's multiple solutions, maybe it's an aspect of that. But again, we have to remember that innovation itself actually soars on the wings of execution. And that's why we're out here, we're looking around, we're meeting new people, we're trying to understand what's out there and things we can use to take back and implement into the city of Aurora.
[00:49:32] Tamlyn Shimizu: I like that a lot. Innovation soars on the wings of. Excellent.
[00:49:35] Michael Pegues: I just made that up, too. Wow.
[00:49:37] Tamlyn Shimizu: I thought that was something that you thought of ahead of time. On the spot.
[00:49:40] Richard Irvin: I could swear he was quoting me for something I had said.
[00:49:43] Tamlyn Shimizu: He'd taken credit for it.
Amazing. Now we get to our segment, which is called for you, it's the flip the script segment.
Usually I'm asking all the questions. Right. And that gets a bit boring. So now you get to ask each other questions. I know you work very closely together, but maybe you have a question for each other that would be interesting to discuss on the podcast.
Who wants to go first?
[00:50:07] Richard Irvin: I'll let you go first, man. I think of my question.
[00:50:10] Michael Pegues: This is a tricky situation.
[00:50:13] Tamlyn Shimizu: I think before you asked him for a raise. Right.
[00:50:16] Michael Pegues: I'm not worried about the raise.
[00:50:18] Richard Irvin: You know, I do have a question. You know, if this were. If we were in a perfect circumstance in Aurora, what would be the next innovative idea that we would implement that you think would have generational change for our community and leave a legacy?
[00:50:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: Great question. Hard question, Great question.
[00:50:40] Michael Pegues: I would go into quantum computing research looking to see, because right now we talk a lot about artificial intelligence and machine learning, but I think a lot of times we forget because we're so caught up on the shiny object, what the impact is going to be with artificial intelligence and machine learning. When we start to implement this at scale, it's going to have a significant impact on our computing power. And the traditional computers won't be sustainable. They won't be able to generate the output. So we have to look at different ways of Computing, which is quantum. And I think there's a huge opportunity for the city of Aurora because our geographical location, because of our assets, because of the mayor and the political will for the city of Aurora to be a thought leader in that space. We have a couple very large federal Department of Energy laboratories in our area. One is Fermilab and the other one is Argonne Laboratories. And the largest supercomputer, I think it's by IBM, sits at Argonne Laboratories outside of Aurora. So I think that's an area where we need to get more involved. And I think Aurora can take a very significant lead in driving that innovation. And obviously it's going to have huge impact on the quality of life, our residents and the businesses and the universities and the entire ecosystem.
[00:52:03] Tamlyn Shimizu: Great question and answer. You don't even need me here, right, asking the questions now. Michael, do you have a question that you want to ask Richard?
[00:52:14] Michael Pegues: If there was something that you could implement within the city of Aurora that impacts the staff in terms of their interdisciplinary thinking, how would you go about that? Because I think that's one of the biggest challenges with government. I think I get a lot of criticism because of my thought process and the way that I execute and I'm not the conventional cio, but I think that it would be something within, because the government employees are very specific. It's very status quo. Not everyone, but very status quo. If there's something that we could do that could pull out that interdisciplinary thinking, a different perspective, how will we go about that?
[00:52:54] Richard Irvin: There's only one way and that's direct and deliberate communication. I gotta be the cheerleader, you know, for my organization. I gotta be the one out there amongst my people, letting them know that I appreciate what they do and what they have to offer and impressing upon them that we, they have the skills and ability to make us even better.
We just haven't tried it yet. So working together, let's come up with new ideas, new plans, new ways of thinking. And I've got to inspire people for them to be, for them to be inspired to use their talents because they're all talented to actually take us to the next level. And you know, that's my job, to be a cheerleader, to inspire people to be who they are. Inspire them to use the talents, their God given talents that they have so all of us working together can move to higher levels.
[00:53:51] Tamlyn Shimizu: Amazing. Great answers. Now we get to the final question. Actually Michael, you already said it earlier, but maybe you can reiterate for us to you, what is a smart city.
[00:54:03] Michael Pegues: A smart city combines three things, information, communication and technology to make your city run better and more efficient, to make it safer, to make it more connected and to make it more prosperous. And I also want to end with Aurora.
It's a state of mind or being a smart city. So Aurora is learning to be the smartest city in America because that journey never stops.
[00:54:32] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. And for you, you want to build on that.
[00:54:34] Richard Irvin: You know I'll just say using you know technology and innovation to continually improve people's lives.
[00:54:42] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very good. And with that that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I've really, really enjoyed our conversation getting to know you over the last couple of days. So thank you very much for coming on.
[00:54:54] Richard Irvin: Thanks for having us.
[00:54:55] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you very much and thank you to our listeners. Of course don't forget you can always create a free account on bable-smartcities.eu. You can find out more about smart city projects, solutions and other implementations. So thank you very much.
[00:55:43] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
