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Todd Barrish

SXSW Interactive 2010: John Tolva Talks Smarter Cities

Written by Todd Barrish
3/18/2010 Post a comment
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John Tolva has a very cool job.

And in his capacity as IBM director of citizenship and technology in our corporate philanthropy group, John has also worked on some very cool projects.

Take, for example, the Virtual Forbidden City, which launched in time for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and helped bring a Chinese cultural landmark to life in virtual reality.

These days, John is very much living and breathing in the real world, helping identify cities around the globe to be candidates for IBM's "city forward" efforts.

In the process, he's demonstrating how IBM can help cities become smarter in the way they are built, revised and run, and in the services they can provide their citizens.

You can learn more about IBM's smarter cities efforts here.

Considering that 70 percent of the world's population is expected to live in cities by the year 2050, we all have a vested interest in helping city systems improve no matter where in the world we live.

Listen to this podcast (16:25, MP3) we recorded recently at SXSW Interactive in Austin to hear John explain smarter cities in more and fascinating detail, and also to discuss his experience in the IBM Corporate Service Corps, IBM's equivalent of the Peace Corps.
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