Charles Finley Charles is the DTPR Governance Lead for Helpful Places and has been involved with the evolution of the DTPR standard from the very first workshops in 2019. He is a civic tech leader in Canada as co-founder and founding Chair at Code for Canada as well as member of the Ontario Information and Privacy Commission's Strategic Advisory Council. He serves as Chief Growth Officer with multidisciplinary engineering firm MTE Consultants and as Strategic Advisor to the Diversity Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University where he leverages his extensive expertise in driving organizational growth, strategic transformation, and program development. Charles previously served on the Waterfront Toronto Digital Strategy Advisory Panel with respect to the Sidewalk Labs project and has held executive-level roles with IBI Group, Futurpreneur Canada, MaRS Discovery District and Thomson Reuters, contributing significantly to Canada’s city-building, tech, innovation and non-profit sectors.

Dana Chermesh-Reshef, Founder & CEO, inCitu Dana is an architect specialized in infill development and housing policies, turned urban data scientist (NYU CUSP '18). In 2020, Dana founded inCitu: a startup on the mission to democratize city planning through augmented reality (AR). Prior to inCitu Dana worked at the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP), her research on the feasibility of Tel-Aviv’s city center rezoning was published in “The Marker” newspaper and she is a frequent lecturer on Smart Cities’ next frontier.

Jacques Priol is an experienced territorial manager in France. He was Director of the public housing office of the city of Avignon, Deputy Director General of the city of Evry and then Secretary General of the Pays de la Loire Regional Council. He has also held various positions as a political advisor. Since 2016, he has been Chairman and founder of CIVITEO, a firm specialized in public data management. He also chairs the Data Publica Observatory and is an expert for various French and international institutions. In 2021, he was appointed associate expert to the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI). He is a former lecturer at the French Ecole Nationale d'Administration. He teaches and lectures at various institutions and training organizations, including the University of Nantes (Master in Data Science), Nice (Master in Algorithmic Law and Data Governance) and Rennes 2 (Master in Geomatics). He regularly runs master classes for public decision-makers (e.g.Montréal connecté 2022 and 2023). Author of numerous articles and books on public data management, in 2017 he published “Le big data des territoires” (Editions FYP), which inspired French public organizations to develop their data strategies. In 2020, he also published “ Ne laissez pas Google gérer nos villes!” a plea to learn from the Google City project in Toronto (Editions de l'Aube). In 2021, he co-wrote and coordinated the production of an official report submitted to the French government, “ De la smart city à la réalité des territoires connectés ” (From the smart city to the reality of connected territories ), which provides an unprecedented overview of the uses of data in the cities. In 2022, he produced a research paper for the french Institute of International Relations entitled “Neither surveillance nor algorithmic consumerism: towards an alternative European model for smart cities”.

Jeffrey Dungen is a computer engineer and technology entrepreneur with two decades of experience in IoT, RFID and computer vision startups. He is the co-founder and CEO of reelyActive whose mission is to put ambient data to work in order to enrich the human experience. Jeffrey has co-authored several IEEE publications, and leads the development of Pareto Anywhere open source IoT middleware which is used in industry and research around the world.

Joanna Kraatz With progressive experience in smart city development and project management, Joanna is currently leading projects for the NSW Smart Places Program Team, leveraging strategic planning skills refined while serving as Future Innovation Officer for Wollondilly Shire Council. Her core competencies include collaboration, transformative project delivery and agile management, ensuring projects align with the mission of creating innovative, sustainable places. Joanna is committed to integrating smart technology and data insights to deliver tangible benefits to the communities through collective impact.

Mike Melinyshyn (CPA CMA, MMAI, MBA) serves as CFO, Director of Corporate Services & Innovation, and Deputy Treasurer at the Town of Innisfil since joining in 2020. Mike uses his passion for technology adoption and Artificial Intelligence to integrate them into business strategy and community development initiatives to provide higher quality services to staff and residents. He has created strategic, innovative private sector partnerships to advance the municipality’s path towards “Innsightful Innisfil” – a community that uses data to enhance services while maintaining residents’ privacy. Mike has significant private sector experience in regional, national, and international organizations. As a Chief Financial Officer for over twenty years, he has expertise in streamlining operations using lean concepts and technological re-engineering, as well as developing comprehensive strategic plans to help organizations succeed. Over his career, Mike has closely partnered with the community - chairing several economic development and industry boards. He has worked with municipal councils to encourage businesses to expand or relocate into communities. His partnership with various colleges and universities has helped businesses grow by adopting the latest advanced technologies into their business processes to create a competitive advantage. Mike is a Chartered Professional Accountant and holds a Master of Management in Artificial Intelligence and a Master of Business Administration with a focus on Management Development.

Susan Skuodas has a career history of over 25 years in the public and private sectors, with experience in in strategy development and execution, stakeholder relations, community engagement, communications, customer experience, event delivery and, more recently, place management and place making. As a member of the Sydney Olympic Park Authority executive leadership team, Susan oversees the Place Management division that focuses on delivering high quality, effective and sustainable place outcomes and customer experiences to activate public spaces, provide safe, inclusive and connected places, build a strong sense of community and neighbourhoods and drive visitation for one of Sydney’s most treasured and iconic precincts. Susan joined the NSW Public Service and Sydney Olympic Park Authority in 2004. During this time, she has driven significant reviews of the Authority’s corporate strategy and has delivered the new Place Vision and Strategy for Sydney Olympic Park 2050 to guide a new master plan that leverages significant infrastructure investment for the region. She has overseen the Authority’s corporate communications, stakeholder relations, international visits programs, community engagement and place activation functions. In recent years, Susan has been collaborating with NSW Government and private industry on a range of Smart projects, including the NSW Government’s SmartShuttle trial of autonomous vehicles, new crowd management and experience technologies and building community trust in digital technologies, and in the development of Smart place strategies for developing future cities and precincts. Susan also serves as a Board Director for Place Leaders Asia Pacific and the Sydney Olympic Park Business Association. She is passionate about applying place-led and people-centric methods to strategy and service delivery, ensuring that projects generate smart and sustainable outcomes for communities, make financial sense and consider future generations.

Ryan Kurtzman is the Technology Partnerships Officer for City of Long Beach Technology and Innovation Department. He leads the City's technology pilot programs, data privacy and AI governance efforts, and strategic initiatives for the Department to support the exploration and adoption of new technology to support more responsive and equitable services. Prior to that, he served as the Smart Cities Program Manager and a Management Assistant for five years. His experience in Long Beach includes developing community programs and policies that leverage new and emerging technology to improve connectivity, mobility, digital equity, and economic outcomes for all residents. Before that, Ryan served as a Policy Fellow for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti where he brokered partnerships and created program evaluation tools to advance the City's Great Streets Initiative and park equity goals. He graduated from UCLA with a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on transportation policy and planning, and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Anu Devi lead G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance at World Economic Forum’s Centre for Urban Transformation.