All posts filed under: Technology

Silicon Valley Innovation Tours Done Right

Published by Gert Christen

This article was first published as a LinkedIn article by Antonio Grgic on November 12, 2018. He condensed his personal learnings from a study tour to Silicon Valley organized by HWZ University of Applied Sciences Zurich. What follows is the English translation of the article with an introduction by Gert Christen who organized and led the study tour. Silicon Valley Tours – Just Tourism or Meaningful for Innovation? If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area you know the two types of buses shuttling people between San Francisco and Silicon Valley: Employee buses of the large tech companies on the one hand and chartered buses carrying visitors from all over the world to the same tech companies on the other. Each week there are hundreds of delegations from all over the world traveling around the Silicon Valley determined to learn its secrets. They fall into five categories: Politicians who want to learn how to set policies that attract innovative companies, resulting in more high qualified jobs and highly profitable and future-proof companies. Business people who want to learn how to be more innovative and who want to sell their products, find new suppliers or create …

“Cracking the Code of Public Sector Innovation” included in Yea(h)rbook

Published by Gert Christen

The Institute of Digital Business at HWZ University in Zurich, Switzerland, included my article about how to create a method to innovate in the public sector in their yearbook 2018. Very happy and proud to make a contribution and to see my learnings being shared and used! The full article can be read here. The yearbook can be ordered here. My thanks to the team who worked with me on this project at City Innovate Foundation, namely Garrett Brinker, Katy Podbielski, Luke Kim, and Carlos Cruz-Casas of Miami-Dade County as well as all the experts, researchers, writers, advisors and supporters. It was a pleasure and together we created something unique!  

Thank you for a great 2017. And wishing you a happy 2018!

Published by Gert Christen

San Francisco is home to one of the most iconic bridges in the world. And I  crossed it a lot during 2017. And I took a picture every time…. While  driving on the bridge and while sailing underneath. Here are pictures of San Francisco’s prettiest bridge during 2017. I hope you enjoy this San Francisco landmark as much as I did. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you! Looking forward to seeing you again in 2018, Yours, Gert Christen

Update on the State of the Digital Revolution – Resistance (still) Futile and Unnecessary

Published by Gert Christen

Two years ago I wanted to raise awareness for the digital revolution and its influence on our lives. So I invited digital startups as “Digital Lifestyle Showcases” to Startupfair. What has happened since? Did new digital technologies change our lives for the better? Or are there reasons to be scared of the oncoming digital tsunami? Time to assess for an update: Digital technologies indeed started solving some previously unsolvable problems. Digital technologies have matured from standalone concepts to integral parts of real world applications. Some of the Startupfair showcases already transformed their field, many have grown into respectable businesses. What I didn’t see coming: Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain as new two powerful enabling technologies.   “Today’s confluence of new digital technologies, new devices and people’s lifestyle preferences is a revolution and offers vast opportunities for innovation, new businesses, and a better life”, is how I started my post two years ago. And fundamentally nothing has changed: Moore’s law continues to advance miniaturization, which in turns allows for ever smaller devices with ever larger capabilities! And with this, new digital technologies are being adopted by more and more users for many different applications. …

Cracking the Code of Public Sector Innovation

Published by Gert Christen

What I learned from developing an innovation method for the public sector: Design thinking and user-centered approaches can innovate for public organizations, if … The focus on users, not technologies. Design thinking is used to create a 360° view of the problem. Industry is involved to map out solutions to use cases and for personas. However, adoption by residents is the ultimate objective and measure of success. The first playbook by City Innovate Foundation was announced last week. It documents how Miami-Dade County’s public transit systems can interface with private transportation services such as Lyft ride-hailing or Zipcar car sharing. Not only is it the first of its kind playbook but it was also created thru a new approach to public sector innovation. The process leading to the playbook was the “Collider Methodology”, which I developed for City Innovate over the last 15 months. It was truly an experience of- “Cracking the code of public sector innovation” The starting point was the idea to map out solutions by “colliding city officials, industry representatives and independent experts on one urban problem”. And the objective was to create …

10 Predictions on the Future of Entertainment (AT&T Foundry report)

Published by Gert Christen

AT&T’s Foundry* recently released a study on what the future of entertainment could look like. My summary: Consumers will (finally!) get to choose what is top and what is not (Predictions 1-3) Artists and other content creators will (finally!) be fairly compensated and everybody is a content creator (Predictions 1 + 4) Entertainment will (almost!) be consumed in a seamless and personalized experience across many devices and media (Predictions 5-10)   What I wholeheartedly agree with is the prediction that smartphones will become our personal remote controls to navigate the entertainment experience (Prediction 7). What did I miss from the report? The lack of addressing the user experience in complete seamlessness between devices and places: If my autonomous car shows me the beginning of the latest episode of my favorite TV series while driving me home, why can’t the screen on my fridge continue to play the same episode while I cook dinner? After all, my fridge knows that I just  helped myself to ingredients. And my personal media gateway (Prediction 5) knows about my TV series watching and should propose the continuation at home, on …

Listen to our Radio Talk Show about Smart Cities

Published by Gert Christen

How can public-private-partnerships accelerate smart city initiatives? On the morning of January 31 I joined Voice America radio for a talk with other smart city experts. Click here or on the coffee cup below to listen to the show:   The American Society of Civil Engineers graded America’s infrastructure only a D+ and estimated that over 3 trillion US$ is needed to upgrade it to modern standards. However, traditional financing sources are often inadequate. How do City leaders find resources for municipal services? Are innovative public-private-partnerships such as City Innovate and Superpublic San Francisco one means to achieve this? The key points from the round of experts and radio host Bonnie D. Graham were: Smart Cities are not about gadgets, sensors or self-driving cars. They are about creating meaningful services for residents. Smart city administrators must become smart city technologists. Public-private-partnerships need to be mutually beneficial or they will not last. Public-private-partnerships combine skills and resources of both the public and private sectors. Social issues & resiliency are taking a front seat for cities.  

Named Digital Shaper of Switzerland

Published by Gert Christen

The Swiss business magazine “BILANZ” covered the digital revolution and how Switzerland is coping with it. Proud to be selected as one of the 100 “Digital Shapers” of Switzerland. The article concludes that Switzerland lost the first half-time against US corporations. The main reasons were lack of access to (big) financing rounds, too few visas for foreign experts and risk avoidance in the Swiss DNA. Several initiatives are now on the way to catch up; on federal, state and local levels but also driven by the large companies of Switzerland. The main assets of Switzerland are its engineering tradition, strong universities and the startup eco-system. The article and the list of the 100 Swiss Digital Shapers in ten categories can be downloaded here (Thank you Pascal Ihle of furrerhugi.ch).

Opening of Superpublic San Francisco City Innovation Lab

Published by Gert Christen

Superpublic San Francisco is officially open! This morning the founding partners of Superpublic San Francisco officially opened the lab. We were honored by GSA General Services Administration Administrator Denise Roth, San Francisco San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, City Administrator Naomi Kelly, Supervisor Mark Farrell of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, City Chief Innovation Officer Jay Nath, University of California Berkeley’s Prof. Susan Shaheen and City Innovate Foundation Co-Founder and Executive Director, Kamran Saddique. Superpublic brings together the innovation forces of the federal, state and city government with private industry, startups and university researchers to solve urban problems thru open innovation:           We employ our own methodology using user-centered techniques, innovation sprints and consistent community outreach to accelerate the time it takes for public organizations to learn, to research about a problem, to prototype and to document the findings in white papers and policy recommendations. These are invaluable tools for cities to educate themselves on issues and possible paths to their solution and to build capacity within city governments to tackle urban problems. The findings …

Superpublic San Francisco: Solving Urban Problems (thru Technology)

Published by Gert Christen

    We today announced* the launch of the Superpublic Innovation Lab in San  Francisco, to tackle urban problems. This is the result of a two-year effort by many in San Francisco, led by City Innovate Foundation, which I joined as COO. Why did I join, what does Superpublic do and why is this important? Cities world-wide grow fast: Two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2020**. Cities do their best to keep up, but problems will arise. Some are of massive ecological, social, and financial nature. However,  some of these problems can be solved thru technology. And that is why I decided to get involved, and that is what City Innovate Foundation does. City Innovate is a San Francisco-based organization taking on urban problems for cities world-wide. The approach is unique because cities are not only members of City Innovate but also the beneficiaries of the developed solutions: The cities provide input which problems should be worked on and they can get involved in the process as much if they desire. Once a solution is ready for global rollout, they have access to tried and tested solutions. What’s more, the development, …