Session 1 - Smart Cities
Chelsea Collier
co-Chair - Session 1 - Smart CitiesChelsea Collier fosters collaboration between the public and private sectors to solve civic challenges, leveraging her experience in tech, policy, social impact, civic engagement and entrepreneurship. Chelsea is the Founder of Digi.City, Editor-At-Large for Smart City Connect Smart City Connect, Senior Advisor for Texans for Economic Progress, and Co-Founder of Impact Hub Austin, one of 84 community spaces around the world committed to social and civic good. Chelsea is a Zhi-Xing Eisenhower Fellow (2016) and is a contributor to Inc.com where she writes about innovation and smart cities.
Chelsea is active in her local and state community and serves on the St Edwards’ University’s Dean’s Advisory Council, the Austin Forum board and is a founding Board Member of the Austin Technology Alliance and the Austin Technology Council’s Policy Collation. From 2013 – 2015, she served as Vice Chair and Commissioner for the City of Austin Community Technology & Telecommunications Commission.
Chelsea is an Austin Under 40 Award recipient in Science & Technology (2015), a graduate of the Leadership Austin Essentials Class (2010) and has masters and bachelor degrees in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin.
Konstatinos Champidis
Session 1 - Smart CitiesChief Digital Officer of the City of Athens, Greece
Konstatinos Champidis is responsible for the digital transformation of the city of Athens. After a distinguished initial career in engineering within the private sector, he spent two years as a special advisor to the Mayor of Athens, actively participating in the development of “Digital Agenda 2020” for Greece. From October 2014 until today, he has been the Executive Member of the Board of Directors of DAEM. From January 2015 to February 2017, he served as Administrator of the Mayor’s “Project Management Tool” and advised him. Then, in February 2017, he became the first Chief Digital Officer of the City of Athens. Konstantinos, released the city’s “Digital Roadmap” on January 2018, which includes all the digital initiatives for Athens. He enjoys cycling and listening to classical music. He is married and has a wonderful 6-year old daughter.
Joel Myers
co-Chair - Session 1 - Smart CitiesVice Chair of the IEEE Internet of Things (IoT) Consortium Smart Cities Working Group
Leading technologist specializing in the creation and development of innovation technology solutions in the communications and management of services in Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and since 2015 in Business Networking.
His company, HoozAround Corp. is currently commercialising a mobile application called HoozAroundTM. This App offers very close-proximity networking for users to carry out business and social networking based on profile matching needs or interests in real-time, indoors and outdoors. Its aim is to bring people together that would otherwise never meet, face-to-face, in order to create new and more efficient opportunities to grow personally, socially as a city-wide community and in developing business. The app was successfully piloted at the IFA Berlin consumer electronics trade fair in 2017 and at the IEEE World Forum on IoT in February 2018 (Singapore).
Over the past few years Joel Myers has been focusing on the redefinition of the “Internet of People” exploring the goals of the smart city industry movement juxtaposed with the need for humanity to remain connected as physical people.
The work carried out by Joel Myers has been published in international newspapers and journals such as the BBC, New York Times, Hong Times, the Hindu Times, Wired, and Forbes Magazine.
Rebecca Hammons
co-Chair - Session 1 - Smart CitiesDr. Rebecca Hammons is an associate professor in the Center for Information and Communication Sciences at Ball State University. She has extensive technology industry experience in establishing and leading software quality assurance, product development lifecycle services, and project management teams. Strengths include technical leadership, process improvement and automation, predictive analytics for software, and strategic planning.
Dr. Hammons has worked for Ontario Systems, Apple, Raytheon, Tivoli Systems and Wang, in addition to several niche software firms. She is a Certified Quality Manager and Certified Software Quality Engineer with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and a Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Product Owner with Scrum Alliance. Dr. Hammons received her Ed.D. and M.A. from Ball State University and her B.A. from Michigan State University.
Her dissertation research was in self-directed learning for software quality practitioners. Current technology industry research interests include Slow Tech, Burnout Theory, Internet of Things/Smart Cities, and Gold-Collar Workers. Dr. Hammons thrives on leading organizational change initiatives and coaching individuals and teams to reach their full potential.
Victor Larios
Session 1 - Smart CitiesVictor M. Larios followed higher education degree programs a the ITESO University in Mexico (BSc in Electronics Engineering) and the Université de Technologie de Compiègne in France (MSc and Ph.D.). He is a Full Professor at the Information Systems Department at the University of Guadalajara (UDG). Since April 2014, he is the Director of the Smart Cities Innovation Center (SCIC) and leads a group of researchers in Smart Cities and Information Technologies at UDG. His primary research interests are in Smart Cities, IoT Distributed Systems, Networking, Multiagent Systems, and Data Visualization using Virtual Reality. As contributions, Dr. Larios published more than 70 papers in international refereed journals and conferences and published a book in Serious Games. As a continuous activity, Dr. Larios is cooperating in projects with the High Technology industry and government using design thinking and agile methodologies to accelerate technology transfer in living labs. As an entrepreneur, he is the founder and CIO of a consulting company IDI Smart Cities, working in cooperation with Advion Solutions from Finland. The main activities are the market research and the development of coordinated international projects in Latin American Countries and the European Union. More specifically, efforts are in place to introduce the Circular Economy Model as a sustainability component for the Mega-Cities. As a volunteer, Dr. Larios also is a technical advisor for the Guadalajara Smart City project for the Government and international ONGs as IEEE. Victor M. Larios is a Senior Member at IEEE with 27 years of membership and the local leader of Guadalajara Core City at the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative since 2013.
Stephen Elkins
Session 1 - Smart Cities“Stephen Elkins signed on as the City of Austin’s CIO in 2010, he and his team have helped transform the technologies and data used across the city to make it one of the most technologically progressive places in the country.” – Built in Austin, 2016
Appointed as Chief Information Officer in 2010, Stephen Elkins came to the City of Austin with more than 17 years of senior management experience in the semiconductor industry. Since his appointment, Mr. Elkins has led the City in transforming its approach to systems and data, receiving numerous awards for his leadership as an innovator in the technology and local government field.
A key element of his success as the City’s CIO, Elkins championed IT Governance, a framework and ideology for an informed, transparent decision-making process used to address the technology needs of other departments, improving their services for residents of Austin. His approach engaged other department directors and City leaders, creating broad participation and support for the City’s IT strategy.
Currently, Elkins leads the City’s adoption of Smart Cities technologies, including electronic timekeeping, a redesign of the City’s public website, and improved cyber-security tools. He also oversees the support of regional public-safety technology partnerships, ensuring interoperability of communications and IT systems and the coordination of emergency response efforts.
Under his leadership, the City’s central IT group—Communications and Technology Management (CTM)—delivered several award-winning initiatives, including Infrastructure Management, Mapping, Planning and Coordination Tool (IMMPACT), Austin Police Department’s Digital Mobile Audio Video (DMAV) Project, and Austin’s Open Data Portal. IMPPACT provides City planners a comprehensive data analysis on strategic capital investments, allowing for the coordination of processes among projects, operations, and maintenance. DMAV provides Austin Police Department with recordings of all traffic stops, police activities, and other police interactions, resulting in increased transparency and unbiased accounts of events. The Open Data portal, which provides transparency into city government, contains more than 1.4 billion points of publicly available data. Since its inception, it has attracted a local community of coders and business owners who have used the data to develop applications and tools.
Prior to his appointment as CIO, Mr. Elkins served as Director of the Small, Minority Business Resources department at the City. He holds a Master of Business from St. Edwards University and a Bachelor’s of Science in Electronic Engineering Technology.