John Zib

John Zib is a social entrepreneur building scalable sustainable urban media platforms that benefit society and the arts. Educated as an Industrial Engineer with a diverse and substantial career in global operations and product marketing, primarily in consumer electronics. Since moving to Europe for a second time, he became engaged in diverse field as a social entrepreneur; arts, academics, technology, governance, media theory, mediated urban environment, collective commons and digital social innovation. He uses business acumen to translate ideas and make new connections that grow opportunities for a socially responsible future. John has developed several opportunities in the arts and social landscape. He currently leads CitizenCity, an EIP-SCC initiative focused on citizen engagement and co-creation.

Changing mindset to find citizens : learning from CitizenCity a (global) European project.

Within the public sector are legacy systems of thinking and acting that are barriers to innovative progress required for new ‘smart’ technologies to align with the real needs and habits of citizens. This is one reason the conversation about citizens continues to exist in the smart city sector. The private capitalist markets are driven by feedback and competition that allows adoption and development of solutions to align with their end consumers. What can we learn from the free market to change our mindset and align smart city solutions with the real needs and habits of European citizens?