Hello #smartcommunityfriends, it’s our podcast birthday! The Smart Community Podcast turns 3 on the 23rd February! So to celebrate we’re doing a week of bonus episodes, bringing together multiple guest answers over multiple days to the question, ‘Where to next with Smart Cities and Communities?” And this time I’m sharing with you the answers from a range of our guests this past year: 

• Mark Thomas from Episode 187
• Sabrina Chakori from Episode 179
• Michael Holmstrom from Episode 201
• Imogen Schifferle from Episode 189
• And Deke Copenhaver from Episode 186

Listen here:

The themes that come through in all of the guest answers are around the impacts and opportunities of COVID19 on our cities and communities. It’s shown us that we can respond and adapt really quickly when we need to and many of the things we used to think were reasons or barriers to implementing Smart Community initiatives fell away very quickly when there was an urgent imperative. 

Several guests make important points about the way the pandemic has brought to light just how important our human connections are, and that even though technology has been a crucial part of how we’ve all adapted and responded, it’s still the humans that matter at the end of the day. As Michael Holmstrom says, ultimately Smart Cities and Communities are about making ‘places for people to live and prosper’ and the pandemic has only amplified that. 

All the guests agree that we can learn from this experience and take lessons away to make a Smarter future for all of us.

We’ll be back in your pod catchers tomorrow with another bonus episode. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community 

Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community 

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.