Greg Lindsay's Blog

March 19, 2017  |  permalink

The Winter Speaking Circuit

image

(Photo credit: Thomas Garza Photography.)

This year is shaping up to be my busiest yet in terms of speaking, moderating, and making public appearances, and this winter has been no exception. It’s been a whirlwind three months – and that’s on top of the birth of our second son, Whitaker Dow Lindsay, on New Year’s Day! As the calendar turns to spring, here’s a quick recap of my sleepless winter:

The year began with a day trip to Los Angeles to judge AECOM’s Urban SOS awards, organized in conjunction with the Van Alen Institute and Rockfeller Foundation. This year’s competition, titled “Fair Share,” required multidisciplinary student teams to submit proposals for “sharing economy” services that actually involved, you know, sharing. The winning submission from Washington University, “First Class Meal,” proposed repurposing underutilized United States Post Offices for local food storage and distribution. They received a cash prize of $7,500 and $25,000 worth of in-kind contributions from AECOM to realize their plan.

From there it was off to Abu Dhabi to speak at the World Future Energy Summit (pictured below), where I framed the challenges and opportunities in terms of what might be called George Gilder’s Second Law: “In every era, the winning companies are those that waste what is abundant in order to save what is scarce.” What does that mean for mobility in an era of autonomous electric vehicles wasting both abundant solar electrons and unpriced roads? How will they conserve the most valuable resource of all – our time?

One theme of the winter has been the unintended consequences of the Internet of Things. At the launch festival for BMW MINI’s new Brooklyn workshop, A/D/O – where I’m the Urbanist-in-Residence at its in-house startup accelerator, URBAN-X – I interviewed MIT roboticist Kate Darling on robots and empathy, and tortured her pet dinosaur on stage (pictured below). A few weeks later, Changeist’s Susan Cox-Smith hosted a private workshop and public event at A/D/O exploring the ramifications of the IoT (Internet of Trump). And the week after that, I was in Chicago, warning of the perils of Big Data and the IoT at the IC Bus Innovation Summit – because really, what can go wrong with an Internet-connected school bus?

The remainder of my talks – for the commercial real estate investment group Accesso Partners, the independent commercial broker associations CORFAC and CORE Network, and the annual luncheon of Downtown Dallas Inc. – focused on how cities are moving away from single-use suburban malls and office parks toward shared workspaces, renewed public spaces, and a new mobility paradigm to support them. It’s a theme that will resonate a lot this spring in upcoming talks and workshops in New York and Oslo on autonomous vehicles. More soon.

Posted by Greg Lindsay  |  Categories:  |  Comments


About Greg Lindsay

» Folllow me on Twitter.
» Email me.
» See upcoming events.


Greg Lindsay is a generalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a non-resident senior fellow of the Arizona State University Threatcasting Lab, a non-resident senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative. He was the founding chief communications officer of Climate Alpha and remains a senior advisor. Previously, he was an urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, where he explored the implications of AI and augmented reality at urban scale.

» More about Greg Lindsay

Blog

January 31, 2024

Unfrozen: Domo Arigatou, “Mike 2.0”

January 22, 2024

The Future of Generative AI in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction

January 18, 2024

The Promise and Perils of the Augmented City

January 13, 2024

Henley & Partners: Generative AI, Human Labor, and Mobility

» More blog posts

Articles by Greg Lindsay

-----  |  January 22, 2024

The Future of Generative AI in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction

-----  |  January 1, 2024

2024 Speaking Topics

-----  |  August 3, 2023

Microtargeting Unmasked

CityLab  |  June 12, 2023

Augmented Reality Is Coming for Cities

CityLab  |  April 25, 2023

The Line Is Blurring Between Remote Workers and Tourists

CityLab  |  December 7, 2021

The Dark Side of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery

Fast Company  |  June 2021

Why the Great Lakes need to be the center of our climate strategy

Fast Company  |  March 2020

How to design a smart city that’s built on empowerment–not corporate surveillance

URBAN-X  |  December 2019

ZINE 03: BETTER

CityLab  |  December 10, 2018

The State of Play: Connected Mobility in San Francisco, Boston, and Detroit

Harvard Business Review  |  September 24, 2018

Why Companies Are Creating Their Own Coworking Spaces

CityLab  |  July 2018

The State of Play: Connected Mobility + U.S. Cities

Medium  |  May 1, 2017

The Engine Room

Fast Company  |  January 19, 2017

The Collaboration Software That’s Rejuvenating The Young Global Leaders Of Davos

The Guardian  |  January 13, 2017

What If Uber Kills Public Transport Instead of Cars

Backchannel  |  January 4, 2017

The Office of the Future Is… an Office

New Cities Foundation  |  October 2016

Now Arriving: A Connected Mobility Roadmap for Public Transport

Inc.  |  October 2016

Why Every Business Should Start in a Co-Working Space

Popular Mechanics  |  May 11, 2016

Can the World’s Worst Traffic Problem Be Solved?

The New Republic  |  January/February 2016

Hacking The City

» See all articles