It is time to reframe and redefine the term "smart city." To date, much of the conversation has been about the smart city as an array of sensors that could lead to better garbage handling or better traffic management. It was always built around the idea of civic authorities providing citizens something they were asking for — even if city hall is short on cash and unable to build the desired technology solution.

I think a lot of technical people (CTOs, senior developers, etc.) try to pretend like marketing doesn't exist — or that it's just not relevant. Coders speak code. Marketers make messaging — and they never need to meet in the middle. Right?

Every IT project you undertake should answer a fundamental business question. Does this project generate more revenue? Does this align with our company strategy? Will we increase our profit?

But I’d like to introduce an overriding question, maybe even more fundamental than the others: Does this project deliver Customer Value? (Keep in mind, when it comes to IT, the customer can be both internal or external. The same questions need to be asked.)

As an engineer and entrepreneur, I’m always looking for ways to solve problems -- including figuring out what the real problem is. And as a smart cities innovation cluster founder looking to the future, I can think of few debates more important than this one.

Google just got the green light for its smart city in Toronto. But those who fear a scenario like in Hong Kong or San Francisco, where authorities can use residents’ data for whatever they want, maybe it’s not too late to fight back?

Hiding behind populist statements like ‘make housing more affordable’ hides the real objective to misuse citizens’ personal data for a social experiment.

The world's biggest company, Amazon, is a two-sided market between sellers and consumers. Among some of the other big companies you could name, such as Airbnb and Uber, it's a common theme with the same model. If you want to go big, go biggest. Play matchmaker between two sides.

Netflix makes blockbusters you can watch at home, but it doesn’t want to wind up like Blockbuster.

Competition from major actors is getting intense. Netflix has already pivoted business models more than once. First, it got rid of late fees while sparing you the hustle of going to the video store. A post-office model was sufficient to take out Blockbuster and build up a customer base.

Slack is now worth about $23 billion after their amazingly successful listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Some of the smartest people in the world are working on artificial intelligence (AI), but they’re running into a big problem: bias.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, AI technology is prone to the same biases that humans, either consciously or unconsciously, weave into their perceptions of reality. Black American defendants in criminal cases are victims of machine bias based on the alleged risks they pose to society. One company using an algorithm to help them hire effectively found that it penalized applicants from women’s colleges.