May 16: How it Works – Register Here
Speakers:
Ken Fricklas
Ken Fricklas is an experienced CTO, VP of engineering, speaker, author, and lean strategy consultant. He was a senior manager at Google Search, is a member of the leadership team at 10.10.10, co-founder of Mallfinder Network (now Placewise), Disinformation, CovidCheckColorado and many other startups, former innovation lead at CableLabs, and a TechStars mentor. Currently he also serves as the innovation chair of the Colorado CleanTech Consortium.
His primary interests are in improving the world through technical means – lessening the effects of wicked problems, and handling complexity through risk management, creative entrepreneurship and strategic leadership. He is certified in leadership with complex systems from Cornell and Applied Information Economics from Hubbard Decision Research, and has written several books on programming and AI.
Sumanth Channabasappa
May 30: Ethics & Responsible Use – Register Here
Speakers:
Emily Royall
Emily works at the intersection of public administration and technology to build greater public oversight over smart city technologies and the data that powers them. She is currently Smart Cities Administrator in the Information & Technology Services Department for the City of San Antonio (her hometown), where she leads a team to execute San Antonio’s “Smarter Together” Smart Cities initiative and supports a multi-stakeholder smart city partnership called “SmartSA”. Emily currently serves as Vice Chair of United for Smart and Sustainable Cities, an international collaborative platform led by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNECE and UN-Habitat. She is also Co-Chair of the Policy Working Group for the GovAI Coalition, a network of over 150 public agencies in the United States working to promote responsible and purposeful AI in the public sector.
Previously Emily advised UN-Habitat’s “People-Centered Smart Cities Flagship Program” and authored six UN playbooks on smart cities for local governments. Emily’s professional experience spans academic, non-profit, and government agencies including working at City Form Labs a Singapore-based smart cities laboratory, the Massachusetts Office of Information Technology (MassIT). She has several years of public sector experience in digital transformation governance and implementation.
Emily has published and presented her work in national and international forums including UN-Habitat, StateScoop, UrbanAI, and GovTech Magazine, as well as the World Urban Forum 11th Session and Smart City World Expo. Across her portfolio, Emily strives deliver public services that maximize transparency, security, equity, and accessibility for all. Emily holds a Masters in City Design & Development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scott Blumenreich
Prior to joining Turaco Strategy, LLC as a Partner and Co-founder, Scott spent over 7 years as the Chief Innovation and Technology Officer for the City of Centennial, Colorado. During that time, he designed, mentored, and brought to international prominence an Innovation Team (or i-team) funded through a 3-year grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies focused on embedding innovation in government. In conjunction with launching the Innovation Team, he architected and built the City’s first enterprise-class IT department, leading to the formation of the Office of Technology and Innovation.
Prior to Centennial and his time as an Executive Technology Consultant, Scott was the Deputy Chief Information Officer of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), where he led the Information Systems Office (ISO) and the strategic and tactical planning efforts during an expansive period of growth; delivering institution-wide IT services for Scientific Research, Business, and Operational Systems supporting national efforts toward developing a new ‘Green Energy Economy’. While with Sandoz, Inc., the generics division of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, he led international efforts to standardize computing platforms, Information security systems, lab automation, and quality standards conforming to both the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMEA) guidelines for both North and South America.
During his multi-faceted career, which began as a grant-based research biochemist, Scott has served in executive and consultative technology roles nationally and internationally. Having transitioned early in his professional life to lead technology transformation efforts in the Pharma and Biotech industries, Scott’s maxim for leaders in both the public and private sectors is to, “Create with Compassion…Disrupt with Discretion”.
Scott holds an M.S. Degree in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry and emphasis in Genetics from Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado. Most importantly, he clears his mind by playing the drums with musician friends and his favorite Prog Rock bands.
Kathleen McInerney
Kathleen’s career spans nearly 20 years in public policy, corporate communications, trust and safety, and social impact. Prior to joining Turaco Strategies, Kathleen led the corporate affairs team for Rappi, a last-mile delivery company operating in nine countries across Latin America. In this position Kathleen built and led teams for privacy, public policy, government affairs, public relations, corporate communications, and trust & safety. Kathleen’s other roles have included international head of public affairs for StubHub; global and regional executive roles for Yahoo and eBay; and leadership positions at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Brazil-U.S. Business Council. Kathleen was part of the founding team of the Latin America Internet Association where she served as Secretary of and member of the Board of Directors.
Kathleen has a BA from the University of Colorado and an MA from American University in Washington, D.C. She speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
