Co-founder of Smart City Works will address collaboration and competition in economic development in Northern Virginia and the Greater Washington region

WASHINGTON D.C. — David Heyman, co-founder of Smart City Works and former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will address economic development issues at the Smart Cities Week conference in Washington Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

Smart Cities Week is a gathering of municipal leaders dedicated to making cities more livable, workable and sustainable. The conference attracts more than 1,200 professionals from 100 cities in 40 countries, who come to the nation’s capital to learn, collaborate and share information.

“This is a top conference in our industry, where many go to learn and discuss the most critical and most interesting ideas of the day,” Heyman said. “And one of the most interesting things going on today is how cities are coming together to build smarter regions.”

Heyman, who began his career as a systems software engineer, is a nationally recognized expert in national security, technology innovation and international affairs, having served in roles at the White House, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in the private sector.

Heyman now leads Smart City Works, a next generation business accelerator that speeds commercialization for early stage urban tech companies. Smart City Works has helped launch companies in cities across America and worked to implement technology solutions in communities in Washington, Northern Virginia and in the mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Europe and Africa.

“People don’t realize it, but the Greater Washington metro area is the strongest economy in the United States,” Heyman said. “Everyone talks about west coast ventures and tech innovation in the Bay Area, but it was NoVa and the Greater Washington region that Amazon selected for HQ2, and that the U.S. Economic Development Administration just awarded a nearly $1 million grant to develop a regional smart infrastructure innovation initiative.”

Heyman will speak Oct. 1 at 3 p.m. on a panel discussion entitled, “A Balancing Act—Collaboration and Competition for Economic Development.” The discussion will focus on how local governments can handle both the need to collaborate and attract economic growth to a region and the need to compete with one another for investment. Case studies, such as the recent competition to win Amazon’s second headquarters, often referred to as Amazon HQ2, will be discussed in detail.

To find out more about Smart City Works, visit https://smartcityworks.io/.
To learn more about Smart Cities Week DC, visit https://washington2019.smartcitiesweek.com

About Smart City Works. Smart City Works is a next generation business accelerator, called a business actuator, that can rapidly move early stage ventures to commercialization, help bring products to market faster, and reduce investor risk. We focus on companies that improve the livability, operations and resilience of cities large and small, with special emphasis on urbantech, IoT devices and the built environment. Smart City Works offers business acceleration, innovation and commercialization programs to support government innovation, and to foster rapid growth in companies of all sizes, graduating more than two dozen firms worldwide since 2017.

CONTACT: Glen Justice at glen@smartcityworks.io.