The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance announced today that Tyler Svitak, former Program Manager for Connected and Autonomous Technologies with the Colorado Department of Transportation, will become the startup non-profit organization’s first Executive Director.
The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance is a growing, multi-jurisdictional collaboration of public, private, research, non-profit and academic sector leaders seeking to accelerate the adoption of smart city technologies to enhance quality of life and improve economic opportunity for Colorado’s citizens and businesses.
Alliance leaders say that Svitak, a well-known and respected leader in the Colorado technology community with deep experience in developing public-private partnerships around advanced technologies, will provide a significant boost to the young organization’s efforts.
“With a rare combination of experience working with emerging technologies from a municipal, state agency and non-profit sector perspective, Tyler is uniquely suited to assist the Alliance as we aim to facilitate meaningful smart city projects across Colorado,” said Jake Rishavy, Alliance co-founder and board member and Vice President of Innovation for Denver South Economic Development Partnership, one of the Alliance’s founding organizations.
He added, “Tyler’s experience and enthusiasm not just for transportation and mobility but also for public health, public safety and sustainability will benefit the Alliance immediately.”
For Svitak, the new role is the logical evolution of a career spent solving problems at the intersection of technology and urbanism. Having held strategic roles at the Colorado Department of Transportation and the City and County of Denver, he has worked to deploy Colorado’s first autonomous vehicles, managed Colorado’s $72 million partnership with Panasonic to improve transportation safety, and defined Denver’s strategy for decarbonizing the transportation sector during the US Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. As the former Director of Air Quality and Transportation for the American Lung Association in Colorado, Svitak also understands how to grow a successful nonprofit around solutions to society’s largest challenges like air pollution.
“I am honored, humbled and excited to lead such a promising alliance of public and private innovators,” said Svitak, who will start in the new role on May 6th. “At the intersection of government leadership and corporate innovation lie the solutions to many of the problems facing Colorado’s towns and cities, and the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance can facilitate the regional projects and partnerships necessary to finding those solutions. I look forward to working with Colorado’s innovation community to make smarter cities across the state.”
As the Alliance’s first executive director, Svitak will work with the Board of Directors, city and company members to identify, execute, and scale regional technology projects. He will grow the Alliance’s membership, reach and value while defining the organization’s priorities in alignment with industry trends.
The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance garnered national attention last year when it announced a partnership with Centennial, Colo.-based Arrow Electronics (NYSE:ARW) and the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) to create the Colorado Open Lab. Scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2019, the Colorado Open Lab will become a first-of-its-kind physical collaboration and lab space supporting the Alliance’s public sector jurisdictions as they collaborate, discover, innovate, test and ultimately validate emerging Smart City solutions prior to deploying at scale within and across their jurisdictions.
About The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance
Formed in late 2017 as an initiative of the Denver South Economic Development Partnership and established as a standalone nonprofit organization in 2018; the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance is the first state-wide alliance of public, private, federal research, academic and business sector leaders in the United States. Together, the Alliance is committed to accelerating the adoption of smart cities projects and initiatives throughout the state and creating the first true “Smart Regions.” Learn more at www.coloradosmart.city.
About Denver South Economic Development Partnership
Denver South Economic Development Partnership seeks to provide visionary economic development leadership, civic involvement and positive business advocacy in a non-partisan and collaborative manner to continuously improve the region’s economy and high-quality standard of living. We achieve our mission through local, regional and global business retention, expansion and attraction strategies; investment in modern transportation and other infrastructures; and promotion of public-private partnerships and public policy advocacy. Learn more at www.denversouthedp.org.
