Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] 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.
[00:00:21] Tamlyn Shimizu: I am your host, Tamlyn Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
[00:00:31] Tamlyn Shimizu: Smart in the City is brought to you by BABLE Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the BABLE platform at bable-smartcities eu.
[00:00:46] Tamlyn Shimizu: So today we are actually continuing our Imagine series where we explore the themes of the Imagine 2025 event held in Tampere, Finland. It's happening on the 27th and 28th of May, so I hope you block your calendars now and put in. It's going to be a really fun event. And as part of that event, we're highlighting the cities that will participate in the Imagine the cityverse Challenge where they will present real urban challenges in search of innovative solutions from forward thinking companies. So to give you a glimpse into the exciting challenges that will be featured, I'm joined by two very distinguished and wonderful guests today. First off, we have a returning guest, Mike Pegues. He's the Chief Information Officer for the city of Aurora, Illinois. Welcome Mike.
[00:01:35] Tamlyn Shimizu: Good morning. How are you doing, Tamlyn?
[00:01:38] Tamlyn Shimizu: Doing well. Always lovely to talk to you. So thanks for coming on next. We have also joining him today, new to the podcast as well, Tom White, the Innovation and Net zero Director of Thames Freeport in London.
[00:01:53] Tom White: Thank you, Tamlin. Thanks for having me today.
[00:01:56] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, pleasure is all mine. So before we get started, really into the depth of what you guys are going to be presenting at Imagine, I like to get a little bit warmed up for that. We have a bit of a teaser question.
So one of the oldest teaser questions that we've had on the podcast is this one and it's if your organization were an animal, which one would it be?
And Mike, the first time you were on the show I asked you this question and you replied, phoenix, do you want to stick to this answer? Do you want to change it today?
[00:02:34] Michael Pegues: I'm very consistent. I'm going to stick to that answer.
[00:02:36] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay.
[00:02:37] Michael Pegues: There's a very clear justification by why. Exactly.
[00:02:40] Tamlyn Shimizu: Good, good, good. Tom.
[00:02:45] Tom White: Yeah, yeah, actually it's a timely question. We were just actually thinking in the team two weeks ago what our animal mascot would be for the region.
We came up with an eel with, you know, the connections with London. But actually I think from Our mission. I think I feel more closeness with an octopus because fundamentally, we're about regeneration.
We need to be fast, we need to be adaptable. And, you know, in what we're trying to regenerate as we lose industrial limbs, if you like, we're here to grow new ones and adapt as our environment changes. And, you know, these things are really complex.
And that only works if all of our arms and many of them work well together.
[00:03:43] Tamlyn Shimizu: Absolutely. So Eeloctopus and the Phoenix.
[00:03:47] Tom White: Eeloctopus.
[00:03:48] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay. That's our title today. Eel, Octopus, the Phoenix. Moving from that, I want to learn more about you both as people always to give a little backstory. I'd like to start with you, Mike.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey for those who haven't heard your previous episode? And also maybe speak to what drives you really in your role today?
[00:04:14] Michael Pegues: Well, my role is driven by, I would say, giving back to my community. Aurora, Illinois, is my hometown. I was actually working overseas for, like, 20 years of my professional career, working for the Department of Defense, working for Hewlett Packard, working for Vodafone and Morgan Stanley. I've worked in Italy, France, and also Budapest and all around Europe, and even spent some time even in India.
Coming back in 2016, I was still working with my prior employer, which is Morgan Stanley. But at that time, I reconnecting with Mayor Richard C. Ervin. At the time, he was not the mayor. He was an alderman, and he was running his own private attorney practice, and he was going up for his third term as mayor. And he and I had conversations about Aurora and how we grew up here because we've known each other since we were four years old and how Aurora has changed fundamentally. It wasn't the best place to live back when we grew up in the 80s and the 90s, but a lot's changed since then. We had a lot of issues with public safety, was one of the reasons why we both left after high school and went to the military together. With about a month apart. But coming back after 20 years and seeing Aurora and knowing that it's my hometown, I was just like, you know, this vision that you have to transform the city of Aurora. I want to be a part of that. And when the mayor won the election in April 2017, he brought me on as his chief information officer. And my job was was to drive the Smart City initiative focused on his three pillars. It was enhancing public safety, promoting economic development, and also uplifting education. And as I always said, those three pillars are driven by technology. Technology is the underpinning foundation that drives those. And since then that's what I've been doing for the last seven years and it's been great.
[00:06:20] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, it's been wonderful. To learn more about Aurora. I was actually just in Aurora last week or a couple weeks ago. I can't remember the timing now and I really got to see the heart and the spirit of Aurora and everything that you've been telling me. So yeah, I'm really glad to you guys also coming to Tampere.
Tom, I'd also like to ask you how did you end up in your role today? What's been your journey? Tell us all about it.
[00:06:51] Tom White: Yeah, sure. So actually my background is as an engineer in manufacturing, in nuclear defense, in maritime.
But over my more recent career over the last years I've shifted more into an innovation space driven by technology and how technology can transform those sectors. But many others in through digital twins, through predictive analytics, future fuels, cybersecurity, but as well increasingly place centric programs.
And something I only actually realized fairly recently is that over my career I found myself working in progressively smaller in terms of people, but much more mission driven organizations which led me to the Thames Freeport about a year after the Freeport was created. And the Freepod is a great mission to bring the public and private sector together to create a more prosperous and sustainable future for the region and our communities. And I suppose similar to some comments Mike just made, I love this job every, every day, which is not without its challenges but mainly because of the strength of that vision and the strength of the team that you can build around you and the partners that can bring with you when you have that strength of mission.
[00:08:40] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thanks so much for sharing, Tom. I love talking to people that really love their job. That's one of the best things about my job too is that I talk to a lot of people that you can tell they really love their job too.
So that's a wonderful story. Maybe just to give a little bit more background for those that don't know Thames Freeport, you said the mission is to bring public and private sector together. Can you elaborate a bit more on how you do that?
[00:09:05] Tom White: Yeah, sure. So, well, to give you a little on the region first. So we represent a region of about 700,000 people to the east of London. And if you know London well, you know that London's growth is constrained to the north, west and south. The direction London grows is to the east.
And our population is hugely diverse in age and culture, economic wealth, education, employment.
But we're A region of great potential, linked to a truly global city and powerhouse of finance, skills, international trade and culture. But we have significant challenges raising employment, improving quality of life, transport, energy, housing, education and indeed aspiration.
And the Freeport Initiative in the uk, we were created to drive regional economic growth. The Thames Freeport specifically, we were created through a founding partnership between DP World, the Ford motor company Dagenham, which I think has been there since about the 1920s, currently manufacturing diesel engines as well 4th Parts, which is a UK port company. But we are formed in partnership with the three local authorities that represent our area. The London Borough of Barken and Dagenham, the London Borough of Havering and Thurrock.
And through everything we do we have a shared purpose of mission in what we're trying to achieve. We make those decisions together as a public private partnership and we invest in those things together that work towards our common objectives of delivering social value, creating new jobs for the population and driving increased inward investment into the region, among many other things.
[00:11:13] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, really interesting connection that you. You build in the region. Can you. I'll get back to Aurora soon, Maiku, but I also want to explore a little bit more with Tom. How does your why does a city verse topic resonate with what you're doing?
[00:11:35] Tom White: Well, I think what I've just mentioned are a series of really complex challenge areas.
As I mentioned, we know we need to improve public health and provision of health care. We know we need to improve transport and public transport options and energy and housing and education aspiration.
How we go about that will be a mix through deploying physical assets in the region that help us collect more data.
But as well importantly, it will be about the digital infrastructure that we deploy in the region that's going to be able to help us access more data, understand it more readily.
And I mean that from both perspectives, both in the context of policymaking and local decision makers. How we understand complex data about the physical world through digital systems that we can use to help us do that, but as well how we help residents and communities access information and services in their local community through a digital medium. So it's part of a broader approach to things that we need to do in the region that we know if we want to take full advantage of the physical infrastructure we have, we need that supporting digital layer built in right at the start.
[00:13:10] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, absolutely, that makes a lot of sense. Maika, I want to ask you also a similar question with Aurora's vision for the future. Why is a city versa topic that resonates with you.
[00:13:23] Michael Pegues: That's a great question. And as I was just listening there, I think I have to give a little kind of background about the city of Aurora. So Aurora is known as the City of Lights. It's the second largest city in the state of Illinois. But I love to say we're second to none. We have a rich history as a hub of industry and innovation. And it dates back to 1880s when we were one of the first cities in the US to use electric street lights, which earned us the name the City of Lights.
The City of Aurora has steadily evolved over time, also as a forward thinking municipality. And we embrace technology advancements to enhance our infrastructure, focus on promoting public safety, and again with the in mind of providing a enhanced quality of life to our residents. The city's focus on sustainability and actually inclusivity is a key component in our efforts to foster that economic growth and position ourselves as a leader in urban development. Also, Tamley heard me say many times that I believe that the city of Aurora, as a second tier or mid tier city in the United States, we're leading the charge. And I truly believe that.
Again, I think with this expansion and starting to look at the topic of the cityverse, that concept of blending these different technologies, whether it's ar, VR, digital twins, to help us create this immersive environment that aligns with Aurora's vision, it resonates with us strongly, I think, being able to focus on mobility as a service and looking at what we currently have today, but taking it to the next level. Because if you look at most municipalities, we're all doing the same thing. There's rideshares, there's public transportation, there's regional transportation, there's taxis, there's buses. But what are we doing differently to provide an enhanced experience for our residents, for our business workers, for our visitors that come. And Aurora being a hub. And we have those three pillars that the mayor talks about. With the Fox Valley mall area, with our apex, with our entertainment districts, with our downtown Aurora, which is arts and entertainment, which is the heartbeat of the city of Aurora. What are we doing to create an experience that people want to come to the City of Aurora, that we can provide this experience to them that no other city can actually do. And I think looking at city bursts and seeing what opportunities are out there with different partners, one of the big things he was just talking about was like public private partnerships. We have to recognize as a municipality, we're always going to be behind the power curve when it comes to innovation and technology. That's why it's so important to have public private partners and have strategic partners that we can lean on to help us to push, you know, the envelope forward. Because at the end of the day, we have to enhance that citizen engagement and we have to focus on economic development or we're just not going to be that attraction here in Illinois, here in the United States or here globally. So I think that's what attracts myself. It's also attracts the mayor and our team to see what is out there that's unconventional that we can do differently that no one else is doing.
[00:16:50] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I love your focus really on the citizen experience. And I think that's so much of what the city verse is really about is this experience for citizens, for your challenge, Mike, the challenge that you're presenting at Imagine is centered around developing a zero carbon mobility as a service platform.
So can you tell us a little bit more about that, why you chose that as a challenge and how you see this platform transforming the citizen experience and.
[00:17:18] Michael Pegues: Absolutely. And again, it's a bit of the unknown because when I originally brought this to the mayor's office, I'm going to tell you, some people looked at me a little out of the side of the eyes like, what is this? I don't understand. Can you please explain this to me? I don't know, you know, do we really want to do this? I don't understand it. People couldn't wrap their heads around what we were trying to do. And again, it just goes back to what I was saying. We have all these different partners and these different options around transportation, but there's still a gap because it's like we're trying to do the same things over and over and over and looking for a different outcome.
And again, I think that is the definition of insanity. But what can we do that, you know, that again, that can focus on that environmental impact that can help us to enhance accessibility, you know, to those major attractions and those key locations throughout the city of Aurora.
How can we do something different in innovation that's cutting edge with the technology and approaches things that creates a more reliable solution and again, that attracts people to using these different public transports. And again, it's exploring the opportunities with those public private partnerships to help us be a little bit more self sustaining and kind of minimize resource strains and then a liability on the city. We have to rely on our partners to help us do this because if we don't, we're just going to stay stagnant. And again, that's another one of those main Drivers where I think the city verse give us a kind of a sneak peek to see what else is out there. And, you know, it might not be something that we use everything, but there could be bits and pieces that can take us in a different direction that can spawn other ideas.
[00:19:10] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I hope you get some really interesting companies to apply for the challenge as well as meeting lots of interesting potential partners in Tampere as well.
[00:19:20] Michael Pegues: I'm sure we will.
[00:19:21] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I'm excited for, for you to explore there. So, Tom, same question to you, really. Your, your challenge at Imagine 2025 focuses on ensuring vulnerable residents receive better access to services through digital innovation. What inspired you to launch this and what kind of solutions or ideas are you hoping for?
[00:19:44] Tom White: Yeah, yeah, sure. So, given our objective as a public private partnership in the region, you know, one of the most important things we have is regional productivity, quality of life, the attractiveness of the area, somewhere to live, and also our social impact mission. So obviously a key component to those various elements is ensuring that our social support systems help the most vulnerable people in society in a timely, effective and accessible manner so that they can maintain their independence longer, that they can continue to be or become to be more active out in the community and out in the economy and bring all the social and economic benefits that obviously come with that as well. And social care in the uk, and as well, and no different in our region, is a system that is under a huge amount of strain, struggling to meet growing volume and complexity of needs, where today, if you take an aging population As a factor, 18% of the population of the UK is over 65 today. By 2030, that'll be 24%.
That's a huge increase in terms of volume. But volume isn't just the thing. With an increasingly aging population, the complexity of needs increases as more people live with more chronic conditions.
With current estimates that one in five people will be living with a major chronic illness by 2040. So demand is growing a lot, and demand is growing quickly as well, not just in the aging population, but in working age adults in the uk. And as well as the social impacts and the personal impacts and the community impacts, this has a huge financial implication for the local authorities that are already resource and cash poor to deliver the other critical services they need to deliver. So the local authorities in the UK spend about 23 billion a year on social care, which is more than 40% of their spending on other services.
And there's the unseen parts of this as well. In unpaid care, all the care that's happening out in the community, by family members, by friends, things like that, that has those second order impacts on productivity and quality of life and cost of living.
That in the UK, we estimate is about $100 billion pounds, sorry worth of care per year. So our challenge area is really around how can we use the cityverse in conjunction with the other things that we're doing, to be able to spot and identify vulnerable residents and people in the community, to provide a more preventative support before issues arise which require that acute or long term resource intensive intervention that can help improve their quality of life, increase regional productivity and create savings for the local authorities and the nhs. So the sort of solutions we're looking for, I suppose just to reflect back, as I mentioned at the start, we represent a hugely diverse region as a cross section of demographic changes that are not only affecting our region and London, but also major cities around the world.
So we need the sorts of solutions that can help meet that diversity of needs. And we know there's lots of innovation around there, for example, social landlords that can help identify the risk of a tenant falling into arrears and how that is an indicator for other health conditions as well.
There are lots of innovations in the customer service world, for example, or in user experience design around being able to take indicators of a person's mental well being, how happy they are, how receptive they are to an idea and things like that. So there are applications of that we'd love to explore. And how do we use systems like that to help frontline staff, regardless of the service they're delivering, whether it's financial support, whether you're showing up to pay your council bill, whether you're dropping in to talk about your bin collections, they're all part of the system.
So can we use solutions like that to help identify people who might need signposting to some more support? And we're already in the region doing some multivariate analysis across the traditional data silos in understanding a resident's risk of requiring increased social care because of key indicators, for example, in their history of financial payments with the local authority.
So we're really keen to see solutions that help frontline staff quickly understand, at the point of interaction with members of the community, understand if that person may benefit from some more preventative direction as well. We're very interested in systems that help people understand the support that is available to them, because we have a large cultural diversity and not everybody speaks English as their first language. And understanding the complexity of all the different services that might be available to you. And when you're eligible for one thing. And what do you do after this? And what do you do after that? So I think there are a lot of things the cityverse that can deliver in making complex systems much more intuitive for people who might not be native English speakers.
You know, through various visualizations and things. And, and then of course, through some of our international innovation programs we've done so far, we've seen the role AR can play, for example, in live translation when you're dealing with a non native English speaker, or in apps you can have on your phone to help you as a service beneficiary understand jargon better. If you're having lots of medical jargon thrown at you, being able to convert that into plain language can just helps people's experience with the social care system. So we're really excited to see what comes forward when we go across to Finland. We're absolutely confident that technology can help us solve this challenge and many others.
With advances in analytics, AI, visualization, user interaction, we have so many more tools and resources at our fingertips now than we've ever had. So we're really excited to see what will come forward in a couple of months time.
[00:27:59] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I'm excited too. Also, I have to say, as a non native German speaker living in Germany, I would really appreciate also all those things that you're trying to do for the non native English speakers because those are much, much needed in public sector.
Mike, I actually want to ask you with what Tom was saying with his challenge. I'm wondering if you can give any insight into anything that you've seen, solutions, interesting things that you've seen in the market or in your work that relates to Tom's challenge. And also, Tom, I would like to ask you the same thing about Mike's challenge. If you have anything that comes to mind about zero carbon mobility as a service platform. Mike, do you have anything that comes to mind about Tums Challenge?
[00:28:50] Michael Pegues: Right, yeah, that's a pretty loaded question. And to be quite honest, I don't have the answer right off the top of my head. I'll have to think about that. But again, I'm sure Tom and I'll have time in Finland to kind of discuss this in more detail. But one of the things I would like to kind of highlight that Tom kind of talked about that I think is very, very important was kind of the social aspect and the demographics around the valley, transportation and how they're working. Because here in Aurora, one of the things is we have a very diverse population.
I would say that you know, about 50% of our residents are Hispanic.
I would say that there's probably another 20% that are Caucasian, 10% that are Asian American and 10% that are black. And there's probably another 10% that is other. But the thing that sticks out is that the language, I think it's close like 45% of the residents speak another language than English at home here in Aurora. So we're a very diverse community. And I think with that diversity comes a lot of challenges and a lot of complexity.
But again, one of the things with the city verse, and we're trying to make sure how this can support us is Tamlin, you probably heard the mayor said several times that Aurora has been recognized as one of the happiest cities in the United States. And there was recent studies done that aurora was ranked 49th out of 180something cities that were analyzed for happiness as a KPI, as a matrix in 2025. That study actually considered things like emotional and physical well being, income, employment and community environment.
One of the things that the mayor wants to always demonstrate and show and to make sure that it's built into what we're doing is how do we increase the quality of life and how do we continue to be one of the happiest cities here in the United States? So I think that's very important.
And you know, while it seems like something that's, you know, a little ambiguous when you start to look at how do we ensure that we track and measure that success, it becomes very important and one of the things to determine that impact and that effectiveness with this city versus challenge and this mobility service as a platform, we have to consider those different KPIs, whether it's from an environmental impact or like the reduction in CO2 from transportation, or increasing, you know, the use of electric zero emissions vehicles. Another area would be focused on the, the adoption and user satisfaction, like the number of residents and visitors who are using the platform.
That's going to be very important. And what's the feedback channels make it into two way feedback channels for our residents. And again, not just focusing on a certain demographics, focusing on the entire span of demographics because again, there is a digital divide there in terms of our senior citizens and those with disabilities. So we need to make sure that there are channels and accessibility for them to also experience this platform. And then of course there's always cost savings and efficiencies. There's got to be cost savings, but it can't just be about the cost savings and efficiency. But it's really important. What is the reduction in transportation cost for the residents. It was one of the big things that we spoke about even in Istanbul with some of our other partners, and improvement in that operational efficiency and that resource utilization because you can put the best, best system out there, but if people don't adopt it, you kind of miss the mark and you got to go back and reevaluate that. Say, what did we miss? What did we do wrong? You know, I talked a little bit about the equity and accessibility, which is very, very important because we do have that large. I talked about the senior and, you know, our, our and disabled residents, but also the underserved community and unserved community. We want to see how we can decrease the transportation related barriers for the low income residents as well to make sure they can arrive to these economic pillars.
Also, one of the other things the mayor is looking at in terms of economic development is the tourism matrix. You heard him say several times in our premium outlet mall, which is now our apex districts, that we have 8 million affluent Asian visitors coming here to the city of Aurora to the premium outlet malls every year.
A lot of them are Asian. How do we create that experience for them? So they have that experience. And again, we know in Asia the experience is different than here in the United States. So we have to kind of look at it from both sides. And again, this is where crossing the pond and taking a different perspective outside of the US in terms of how we do things and being unconventional is very important. And there is a rise in numbers, you know, due to the improved, you know, economic development, enhanced public safety and services that we're delivering here in the city of Aurora. And that's been driven by the mayor, I'm sorry, the mayor and the irving administration since 2017. You know, then there's other things like traffic congestions and looking at the oath matrix to make sure that there's a reduction but also improve traffic flow with different models. And that's where the technology will come in around digital twins and managing traffic flows and things of that nature. And I would probably say last, and it always goes back to the residents, the communities and the stakeholder engagements, right? Participation in those, you know, those feedback loops and having public forums to get them involved, you know, during a deployment of something that's going to serve them.
And I'm going to use this quote and I'm going to end it. And this gentleman that we all know by the name of Boz Borman said social innovation can never be a project run by one group of People for the benefit of the other. And you have to get those people involved. You have to get them involved to help grow that ecosystem.
[00:35:08] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, I love that approach and getting the citizens involved. And that's what the city verse is really about too, that it's city with an I and not city with a Y. It's about the citizen as well. Tom, do you have any insight solutions, anything like that from. From what Mike says, Mike has said today?
[00:35:27] Tom White: Well, I suppose I would start with a reflection to Mike's crossing the pond point.
I never fail to be amazed or reminded of the power and importance of global collaboration on these issues because so many cities in the world and so many of the things Mike you've just talked about are exactly the same things that we are trying to work on as well.
You know, citizen happiness and social value being a big part of it. Obviously, as a, as a public private partnership driven by regeneration.
You don't just do that by bringing businesses to a region and setting up. It has to be somewhere that you want to stay, you want to build a life, you want to live and work there. It needs to deliver the quality of life benefits to you as well. It's a tangible thing that we need to improve.
And I suppose mentioning, you know, mobility as a service, zero carbon mobility as a service, it's hugely relevant for our area also. And as I mentioned, we're driven to bring those new businesses and economic drivers to a region. But if I just give you an example that one of our region's largest employers, the first thing they ask on a job application form is do you have a driving license? Because there are no public transport options to get you to that site, which is an area of huge growth potential.
So it doesn't fit with being able to attract fantastic employers in if you're telling them on the first day that you're not going to be able to access half the workforce in the region because they don't have driving licenses. So we need to be able to provide new mobility solutions. They need to be clean mobility solutions, they need to be shared access where a public transportation business model might not fit.
And I know Mike, you talked about the different members of the community being able to access that as well. And that is absolutely critical that we need to view this through a lens of not only do we. How do we help people get around the community better, but specific parts of the community will have specific needs and specific things they will need from a solution to help them move around, whether that is driven by cost pressures or whether that is driven by a physical limitation or whether that's driven by a mental challenge that people have. As not all accessibility challenges as we know are visible, we have increased instances of social anxieties in the community which hold them back from engaging in the local economy and engaging with the local communities.
There's a great organization called the Motability foundation in the uk.
We don't work with them at the moment, but certainly they're doing an awful lot of really good work in bringing forward new innovations in helping people with disabilities use transport. Much better.
I feel there are probably many things that we'll be able to talk about in Finland, Mike, about the US and UK experience on a lot of these technologies. I don't think I'm actually allowed to mention individual companies and recommend their solutions without working out some commercial arrangement with them first, get paid to do it first.
But there is certainly a wealth of activity going on in the UK in mobility as a service, how we have more shared access to zero carbon transport opportunities and things like that. But again, back to the first thing I mentioned is just the importance of global collaboration on what are global issues and talking to other cities.
[00:40:02] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah, there's going to be plenty of that in Finland as well. Now, I want to just give you both the chance for a little bit of an open flow floor as well, in case we miss something. In particular, for the innovators who are listening that want to apply for your challenges, what, what would be the message that you give them? And also for anybody else that might be interested in coming to Finland and seeing you guys and meeting you. Mike, you have something?
[00:40:30] Michael Pegues: Yeah, absolutely.
I know we always want to start with the end in mind, but I absolutely think that the journey is just as important going back to kind of our conversation. I think that perspective is essential in driving innovation because it shapes how we approach challenges, how we generate ideas, how we envision solutions.
That's going to be key. And again, I'm trying to get out of that proverbial box, you know, with the thinking that we have in government. And as you know, I push the envelope all the time in municipal government because I feel that we have to, to be innovative and to be kind of that forward, you know, that leader up front. You know, I'm always talking about diverse thinking. We have to challenge those different assumptions and we have to adapt, we have to be agile.
We have so many different considerations and things that are hitting us from different areas. And I think that agility is going to be really important for us to be able to connect the dots and drive these different collaborations with the different partners. And again, as Thomas spoke about the public private partnership, that is absolutely essential. And again, having diverse perspectives come into the city of Aurora said, have you ever thought about looking at this from this lens and consider, you know, the needs of your community from a different perspective? Because I think we do get caught up in that same kind of. We've already. We've always done it this way, so why are we deviating? And it's government, we're notorious for that.
So I think with the city verse and those companies that are coming, I'm going to say bring your A game. No ideal is too crazy or out of the box.
Come with fresh perspectives. Be ready to participate and be challenged and come with your ideas and let's just have fun in the process.
[00:42:34] Tamlyn Shimizu: Love it. Great. Tom.
[00:42:38] Tom White: Well, I say one of the most important ones for me is always have fun.
It's a great privilege to do something you can and do enjoy as well. On the other side of the challenge, I would say come and challenge us of what our perception of the challenge is and have we thought about the right things? We have a view of an impact we're trying to achieve and a rough view of how we might get there. But do come and challenge that and tell us that. Actually, no, this might be the way. We would love that challenge. And I would say critically as well. When we're thinking about these solutions and the sort of people and the parts of our community we are trying to build them for to benefit. Keep the people at the front of what you are doing and about their experience with the solution. How will they use it? How will they benefit from it?
And are you covering and thinking about the right groups of users that are going to benefit from this solution?
[00:44:05] Tamlyn Shimizu: All right, innovators, you heard it. You heard what they want. Now you know you have all the inside tips on how to make your application successful. So bring your A game and have fun.
Now we get to move into our fun segment as well. It's where I get to sit back and relax. Because this segment that we have for today is called Flip the Script.
Flip the Script.
You are the one asking the questions and I'll be the one answering them.
And for this, when we have two guests, it's actually that you guys get to ask each other a question.
So that's why I get to sit back and have a tea, really? Because now it's all in your court.
Tom, maybe do you have a question that you'd like to ask Mike?
[00:44:53] Tom White: Well, we've spent a little bit of today talking about the importance of public private partnerships. I don't think we're in any disagreement there of the critical nature of it. I suppose, Mike, having had the opportunity to read about some of the great work that you guys have been doing in Aurora, is what are some of the biggest learnings that you've built up in establishing truly successful longer term public private partnerships that deliver both social impact and economic value?
[00:45:35] Michael Pegues: We have. Absolutely, absolutely. And I could probably go on all day about this, but one of the things, I'm just going to take a couple examples.
We had an initiative during COVID called no Child Left Offline where we deployed high speed Internet access to like 11 virtual centers throughout the city. And a lot of those cities were in underserved communities when the kids had to stay home and the remote work epidemic started. And we delivered that in about three, four months so those kids could have free Internet access.
That initiative was driven through a public private partnership, the City of Aurora, Scientele Solutions and also NTI to deliver those sites.
That was huge for us.
That started in April of 2020 and it spawned what we call today the Aurora Steam Academy, where we've been able to Deliver K through 8 STEM courses to our underserved population here in the city of Aurora. And We've served over 10,000 disenfranchised students for free. It's being financed by the City of Aurora. It's being delivered through APS Training Academy, Mr. Harisha Nantapadman, who Tamlin, you had the opportunity to meet. And that's been going on. So again, you know, getting into public private partnerships, not being afraid to challenge the status quo because you never know what's going to come out of it, you know. And again, that initiative led to something that's been unprecedented here in the city of Aurora. And we don't manage education, we support education. We have an education commission. But we have six school districts here in the city of Aurora which are run by independent boards and superintendents. But we collaborate with them and the mayor has established an education commission to help support and facilitate that.
And I'm a big advocate, huge advocate of public private partnership. I came from that in my past private sector world and brought it into government. I even have that even implemented here within my IT department from a shared services background. We just can't do it by ourselves.
[00:47:49] Tom White: Fantastic.
[00:47:50] Tamlyn Shimizu: Satisfied with that answer, Tom?
[00:47:53] Tom White: I'm very satisfied.
[00:47:55] Tamlyn Shimizu: Okay, good.
Wonderful. Yeah, me too. And with that, I would like to ask Mike if you have a question for Tom?
[00:48:03] Michael Pegues: Absolutely. I guess, Tom, the question I'm going to ask you, I'm just going to be very direct about it. How can the city of Aurora and Thames Freeport collaborate in the future? I want to sit down and have a tea with you and figure that out.
[00:48:17] Tom White: Well, I suppose the first thing is that we sit down and have a tea when we're together in Finland, Mike. I think so. I think, you know, along similar lines that I mentioned earlier, we're on a growth mission, we're on a social impact mission, and we're doing that in global challenges. We want global partnerships. We want to be working with cities around the world, and not just any cities that.
What I would love to do is work with cities and regions similar to us or who have been on similar journeys that we have, who are on a trajectory of growth, who are creating the new things, who are serving those members of the community who need that most.
So I would absolutely. Mike, consider this a tea invitation.
In Finland. Do we drink tea in Finland? Sorry, I'm showing my ignorance here.
[00:49:23] Tamlyn Shimizu: Tea is everywhere, Right?
[00:49:25] Tom White: Tea is everywhere. Surely this is a thing.
Absolutely. And we would love to find out more about you and your journey and what you've been on and what you've learned. And likewise, we are an open book. We're happy to share what we've learned, where we're going, everything we're doing.
So, yeah, I think the answer is let's just start.
[00:49:50] Michael Pegues: Just kick it off.
[00:49:52] Tamlyn Shimizu: All right. With that, I'm glad that this was a start to, hopefully, a fruitful collaboration between the two of you as well. Those are kind of my favorite podcast episodes too, where we bring together two people who haven't yet collaborated, but use the podcast also as a starting point.
With, of course, another great event on the horizon where you two can meet and collaborate more and also get to know all the innovators that are coming in and all the other stakeholders. So with that, we have the final question, and it's a question that we ask every single guest.
I guess I go with you first, Mike, because you're the pro. You already answered it once. The question is to you, what is a smart city?
[00:50:37] Michael Pegues: A smart city is a municipality that uses information, communication and technology to enhance public safety, to run better services, to promote economic development, and to.
Yeah, I would say those are the three pillars.
[00:50:57] Tom White: Economic development.
[00:50:58] Michael Pegues: And promote education. And promote education. I almost forgot it.
[00:51:01] Tamlyn Shimizu: Yeah. Can't forget the education piece. Yeah.
[00:51:03] Tom White: Yes, Very good. Exactly.
[00:51:05] Tamlyn Shimizu: Good. Tom, what do you think?
[00:51:08] Tom White: I think it maybe depends on what stage you're at in your evolution, how you see it. And as I say, we've been going for about a year or two maybe now. I suppose for me, when defining a smart city, it's about purpose and how we choose to work together. I always describe it. What we're trying to build here is a city that works for people, communities and businesses by making the best use we can of the current resources, tools and knowledge that we have available to us. Where resources might be data, people, businesses, infrastructure, many different things, our tools and how we do that could be through partnerships, new analytical capabilities that are available to us, connected assets, ways of working and knowledge is a continuing process through communication and collaboration, experimentation, but critically, an earned deep understanding of what actually matters and what actually makes a difference.
[00:52:28] Tamlyn Shimizu: Very well said both of you. With that, I have to thank you sincerely for taking the time to speak with me today about your challenges, also your outlook on cityverse and also encouraging everyone to come to Tampere and learn from each other and challenge each other and have fun as you mentioned as well. So thank you Mike. Thank you Tom so much for coming on.
[00:52:51] Tom White: Thank you very much.
[00:52:54] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you. And also to all of our listeners, thank you very much. This wouldn't happen without you. And remember to make your trip up to Tamperei, Finland on the 27th and 28th of May. We're going to be exploring all the Cityverse topics at the Imagine 2025 event. And don't forget, you can always create a free account on Babbel.
You can find out more about all of our projects and things that we have going on. Thank you very much.
[00:53:25] Tamlyn Shimizu: Thank you all for listening.
[00:53:26] Tamlyn Shimizu: I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
