Transformed
Smarter Cities for Efficiency and Quality of Life
As a smart(er) cities researcher–and the host of What’s the Future for Smart Cities Podcast, Hungarian-born Australian, Fanni Melles is on top of her game and understands the smart cities movement like no one else. Her research–and her podcast–has enabled her to learn from some of the best minds in the movement.
During this conversation, Fanni shares her knowledge and wisdom of the smart(er) cities movement and what needs to happen so that technology–and the cities and communities–truly serve the people who live, work and play there.
Corey Gray of the Smart Cities Council provides the opportunity to explore the leading edge of urban innovation, data-driven infrastructure, sustainability, and the ethics of intelligent systems. Corey is positioned at the crossroads of technology, public service, and community design, providing a highly relevant conversation focused on regeneration, localization, and equitable systems transformation.
What is a Smart–or Smarter City? How does it work? What are its benefits? How can a city become a “smarter city” and not be controlled by big tech, but instead, maintain quality control for the people who live, work and play there?
Corey Gray, Smart Cities Council, and Fanni Melles, What’s the Future for Cities Podcast
A qualified scientist, engineer and artist, Corey has a diverse 30+ year career in industries ranging from professional sports, through technology, advanced manufacturing, entertainment, fine arts, charity and philanthropy.
Currently Corey holds several professional positions including: Global President of Washington DC headquartered Smart Cities Council, the world’s peak industry group Smart Cities, Buildings and Technologies ; Co-founder and chair of multi-international award-winning feature film production company, Switch Productions; Global board member of New York based EB Research Partnership, a charity dedicated to finding a cure for the rare genetic disorder. Corey is also a recent director and treasurer of Silcon Valley based technology interoperability group, LonMark, and professional Australian Football franchise, Sturt Football Club.
Fanni Melles, Architect, Host of “What’s the Future For Cities” podcast
Fanni Melles, PhD, is a future of cities researcher, an architect by profession and a project manager by experience. Once involved with Hungary’s largest urban project in 150 years (911,412.13 m², across 10 design teams), she now holds a 2023 PhD from Swinburne University, diving deep into smart cities, future of cities, and innovation. Host of the “What is The Future for Cities?” podcast with more than 300 episodes, she thrives on turning chaos into cutting-edge urban systems. Passionate and dynamic, Fanni crafts bespoke city futures, rallying stakeholders to transform urban landscapes—because cities, she says, are the people who live in them.
Building Infrastructure for Planetary Regeneration:
Stuart Cowan, Chief Scientist at the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI), presents a powerful opportunity to explore the frontiers of regenerative design, systems thinking, and whole systems transformation. Cowan is known for connecting deep ecological intelligence with design science and planetary health.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
— Buckminster Fuller
Dr, Stuart Cowan, Buckminster Fuller Institute
Dr. Stuart Cowan is the Executive Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, which is dedicated to the realization of Fuller’s vision of a world that works for 100% of humanity in the shortest time possible through spontaneous cooperation. In this role, he launched the BFI Design Lab to develop critical infrastructure for resilience and regeneration at local to bioregional to planetary scales. He brings 25 years of experience in regenerative design, finance, and systems and is a planetary strategist, ecological designer, systems scientist, and regenerative economist. He is the Co-Founder of Autopoiesis LLC, which works to regenerate communities, ecosystems, and organizations.
He was the founding convener of the Regenerative Communities Network from 2018-20, supporting 15 bioregions on their journeys of regeneration. He brings a diverse range of experiences including Chief Scientist at the Smart Cities Council, Transaction Manager for the sustainable investment fund Portland Family of Funds, and Conservation Economy Research Director at the non-profit Ecotrust. He is the co-author with Sim Van der Ryn of Ecological Design, and received his doctorate in Applied Mathematics from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on Complex Systems and Ecological Economics. He has taught and facilitated internationally for academic institutions, cities, companies, indigenous groups and governments.
Re-imagining media and the arts as a public service:
Michael Masucci, co-director of the pioneering media arts collective EZTV, offers an extraordinary chance to explore the evolution of independent video art, the birth of digital culture, and how media can be a vehicle for radical transformation, equity, and experimental collaboration.
Our conversation is designed to bring forward his decades of innovation at the intersection of art, technology, activism, and community.
Experience the uplifting story of EZTV and the importance of decentralized community media.
The arts has served as a method of traversing cultural barriers and geo-political ideologies and has been the bleeding-edge of innovation in both thought as well as practice.
How can we leverage the enormous potential of the current media tools and the distribution and communication possibilities of those who have access to online experiences?
How can media benefit from the forward-thinking experimental model that art cultivates and preserves?
It is time to re-imagine both how mass pop culture and the more esoteric niche practices in the arts build bridges between seemingly different communities and belief systems.
Michael Masucci, EZTV Media and EZTV Museum, DNA Festival, Santa Monica
Michael J. Masucci is an award-winning artist who has also been curating digital art since 1984, and producing digital and multimedia since 1980. According to the Victoria & Albert Museum, an early digital art gallery he co-created “literally put digital art on the map.” As a founding member of EZTV (eztvmuseum.com) he has collaborated on projects which have been presented at institutions including the Getty Museum, Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Institute of Contemporary Art (London) the Centre Pompidou, Lincoln Center, PBS, UCLA, the School of Visual Arts (NY) New School/Parsons, the University of Helsinki, SIGGRAPH, Disneyland Paris, CalTec, Anthology Film Archives, LA Filmforum, DEFCON, Humanity+, Burning Man, as well as at numerous festivals, and professional conferences. A retrospective of his early video has been staged at REDCAT/Walt Disney Concert Hall Complex,
He has authored articles and spoken on topics ranging from information security, transhumanism, and the role of art in the digital world. His work is included in the permanent collection of USC and UCLA. He has been included in the Getty’s PST in 2011 and 2024 and co-founded DNA Festival Santa Monica and has been profiled in various publications and appeared on a number of podcasts and in several documentaries and is being included in a PHD dissertation on media art. A cisgender man, he helped save an archive of seminal early Queer media art. He has served as Chair of the Santa Monica Arts Commission and is the recipient of four City commendations for his contributions to the arts. He has been an artist-in-residence since 2000 at 18th Street Arts Center. He holds a degree in law and certifications in music production, graphic design, computer coding, entrepreneurship and mediation/conflict resolution.
