The Intelligent Community

As a 25-year resident of Hudson, Jim Stifler has chosen to perform his encore career as the City of Hudson’s Chief Economic Officer. After a successful 33-year career as a Wall Street executive, Jim is able to showcase his extensive private sector experiences and use his strong ties in the community to move the City forward. In addition to attraction and retention, Jim provides strategic oversight to Hudson’s rapidly growing, city - owned, fiber-optic broadband business. Jim’s most gratifying work

Kari Aina Eik is the Secretary General of the OiER – Organization for International Economic Relations, www.oier.pro , an international NGO and multi-stakeholder platform based in Vienna, Austria. Ms. Eik is the Executive Director of the the USC (United Smart Cities) Program www.unitedsmartcities.org (lead by UNECE and OiER) and currently one of the leaders of the U4SSC United for Smart Sustainable Cities, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/ssc/united/Pages/default.aspx focusing on the finance guideline

Kari Aina Eik is the Secretary General of the OiER – Organization for International Economic Relations, www.oier.pro , an international NGO and multi-stakeholder platform based in Vienna, Austria. Ms. Eik is the Executive Director of the the USC (United Smart Cities) Program www.unitedsmartcities.org (lead by UNECE and OiER) and currently one of the leaders of the U4SSC United for Smart Sustainable Cities, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/ssc/united/Pages/default.aspx focusing on the finance guideline

As COO for economic development and marketing, Ben Pole drives the strategic and operational direction of Economic Development, Smart Digital City, Marketing and Communications, Tourism and Events, and Media staff and resources for Queensland’s fastest growing city. He leads integrated programs and performance for one of Australia’s most successful destination marketing organisations to achieve key market advantage and new market success, with a particular focus on developing industry leading

Juha Ala-Mursula is an experienced Economic Development Director with a demonstrated history of managing large organizations engaged in change in the public sector. With skills in product lifecycle management, embedded and open-source software, innovation management and mobile technologies, he oversees economic development in one of Finland’s leading technology centers. A graduate of the University of Oulu, he holds an MBA in international business from the Helsinki School of Economics.

On June 6, Espoo was named as the 2018 Intelligent Community of the Year. Prior to the Summit, and before knowing his community would be named Intelligent Community of the Year, Mayor Jukka Mäkelä spoke with Lou Zacharilla about Espoo. Jukka Mäkelä was born in Espoo, Finland in 1960. In 2007 Mäkelä was elected as a Member of Parliament for the National Coalition Party. Mäkelä has been the Mayor of Espoo since the start of 2011. He has been involved in the local politics of Espoo as a City Counsellor

Roberto Gallardo is Assistant Director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development and a Purdue Extension Community & Regional Economics Specialist. He holds an electronics engineering undergraduate degree, a master's in economic development, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration. Gallardo has worked with rural communities over the past decade conducting local & regional community economic development, including use of technology for development. He has authored more than 70 articles