Smart Cities Demand Smart Thinking

Main navigation Johns Hopkins Legacy Online packages Faculty Directory Experiential studying Career assets Alumni mentoring program Util Nav CTA CTA Breadcrumb Smart Cities Demand Smart Thinking When it comes to figuring out what makes cities tick â€" and tips on how to improve upon it â€" Colin Curzi has knowledge and expertise past his years. Curzi, a student in Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s Global MBA class of 2019 (with a projected focus in Real Estate and Infrastructure), has already began to amass an impressive background in urban planning and infrastructure, new applied sciences, and sustainability methods â€" and the way they can all work collectively to reimagine cities within the twenty first century. Prior to Carey, Curzi was chosen for a “Smart Utilities” Fellowship for the City of Boston’s Planning and Development Agency â€" the town’s financial development and urban planning office. Boston was wrestling with the challenge of implementing smart metropolis expertise whereas addressing the dangers local weather change posed to current infrastructure. The chance to seek out solutions to those issues led to Curzi’s leaving his profession at Accen ture to help determine the way to shift infrastructure to better enable for these rising applied sciences while making town extra resilient within the face of local weather change. Curzi, in a project management and strategy capability, labored with a broad spectrum of metropolis businesses, utility corporations, engineering firms, consultancies, and town’s actual estate developers to craft a strategy for policy changes to how Boston used energy and water, managed visitors, and created more equitable knowledge communications. The end result was a extra functional coverage that's within the strategy of implementation for all new development in the city. The Boston Globe cited that the policy for withstanding climate change “… seems to be the primary of its type in the nation.” Among the issues developers will need to handle are offering energy to residents in emergency conditions; retaining rainfall to scale back runoff and potential flooding; consolidating fiber optics, cabl e, and other communication conduits; and putting in smart site visitors indicators and road lights that promote improved site visitors flow and reduce power usage. Indeed, the attract of putting these practices to work was a chief think about what attracted Curzi to Carey. “Baltimore was in all probability my largest draw. It is an exceptional panorama for implementing totally different social or authorities packages,” he mentioned. “People here need to help you make issues work.” After “just a few conversations” with the chief of workers of town’s CIO, Curzi was engaged on digital strategies and sensible metropolis insurance policies during his first yr at Carey. Baltimore was probably my greatest draw. It is an exceptional landscape for implementing totally different social or government programs,” he stated. “People right here need to assist you to make things work.” Colin Curzi | Global MBA '19 “Just the chance Carey has to position itself as the enterprise advisor to the City of Baltimore is really appealing and I needed to be a part of bringing that to fruition,” explained Curzi. “Carey students should be in City Hall,” he added. “Baltimore City is using government to create new markets for tech and sustainability and in any other case in ways in which may benefit from leveraging Carey as an advisor.” With Curzi’s participation, Baltimore recently revealed its first-ever digital strategic plan. The goal is to move metropolis providers to the IT cloud, whereas making them more buyer-centric, and aligning them with each department of metropolis government to deal most successfully with citizens’ wants and issues. Another aim is to lure additional know-how corporations to move to town. This summer season, Curzi is putting his burgeoning experience to work for Google’s city planning sibling firm, Sidewalk Labs, in an internship designing a sustainable infrastructure growth project for the city of Toronto. Curzi credit hi s time already spent at Carey as instrumental in his persevering with work. The class I’ve relied on the most is ‘Managerial Decision Behavior' ... [It informs] how to evaluate new info with out getting overwhelmed by it ...” “The class I’ve relied on probably the most is ‘Managerial Decision Behavior’,” he said. “[It informs] how to consider new data with out getting overwhelmed by it, which is very troublesome within the sustainable city development space where you’re talking about concepts that don’t exist in any respect, or if they do, they function within one pilot zone and had been never seen before or since. So, you actually have to determine a way of weighing this info, not getting too excited about it and not discounting what you see on the similar time.” “[It’s about] tips on how to decide in a wise method.” Posted a hundred International Drive