CityWorks: a UI LABS Collaboration

Caralynn Nowinski

As the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of UI LABS, Caralynn Nowinski oversees the entire research and commercialization collaborative, including the $320-million Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute. Prior to UI LABS, Caralynn was Associate Vice President for Innovation & Economic Development at the University of Illinois. Caralynn spent her early career in venture capital and corporate finance, primarily focused on technology-based university spin-outs. She was a Principal with early-stage venture capital firms ARCH Development Partners and Midwest Venture Partners, and Senior Vice President of Sikich Investment Banking. As a graduate student, she co-founded SanoGene Therapeutics, an early-stage biotechnology company, where, as CEO, she led the company’s spin-out from the University of Illinois and raised a strategic equity investment. Caralynn is a Governor-appointed member of the Illinois Innovation Council and currently serves as a member of Mayor Emanuel’s ChicagoNEXT Council on Innovation and Technology. Principal among her honors are inclusion on the Crain’s Chicago Business 2008 “Forty Under Forty” List and in the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Emerging Leaders Class of 2014. She is a frequent guest speaker on technology entrepreneurship and early stage investment.

Dave Hopping

Dave Hopping is the President of the Building Technologies (BT) Division for Siemens Industry, Inc. in the U.S. In this role, he leads operational and commercial activities for Siemens’ broad portfolio of products and services across building automation, energy management, fire safety and security solutions for buildings, facilities and enterprises across all industries. Dave joined Siemens in 1989, and since that time has steadily held successive leadership positions in key sales, operations and management roles for Siemens across the country. In addition to his business leadership responsibilities, Dave is presently on the Alliance to Save Energy Board, Chicago - Museum of Science & Industry Board, and has been the Chicago City Ambassador for Siemens Corporation, USA. Dave earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

Dan'l Lewin

Dan'l Lewin is a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, leading the company’s work in civic tech, campaign technologies and academic outreach, which promotes the work of scholars leading the dialogue on technology policy issues. Previously, he led Microsoft’s global engagement with startups and venture capitalists and business relationships with strategic industry partners. Lewin has executive and site responsibility for the company's operations in Silicon Valley, which currently employ more than 2,000 people. Lewin has spent more than 30 years as a Silicon Valley-based executive, leading sales and marketing divisions for companies including Apple Computer Inc., NeXT Inc. and GO Corp. Before joining Microsoft, he was CEO of Aurigin Systems Inc., a startup that pioneered intellectual property asset management. He has also consulted for emerging companies, venture capital firms and corporate joint ventures. Lewin serves on the boards of the Churchill Club, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, World Business Chicago, the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center and the Tech Museum of Innovation, where he served as past chairman of the Tech Museum Awards program. In addition, Lewin is on the Corporate Advisory Board of the National Venture Capital Association. He holds an AB in politics from Princeton University.

Brenna Berman

Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) Commissioner and CIO, Brenna Berman joined the Emanuel administration in 2011 as Deputy Budget Director focused on enterprise initiatives and performance management. After a year in that role, Brenna transitioned to DoIT as 1st Deputy Commissioner to focus on enterprise IT consolidation and operational excellence. Over the past year at DoIT, Berman has focused transforming the team at DoIT to align with the Mayor’s commitment to an open and data-driven government, building Chicago’s open data program into one of the largest in the country, implemented the ground-breaking “WindyGrid” spatial analytics platform into every level of government, integrating advanced analytics and real-time data-driven decision making across the city, and setting a new standard for government IT. Berman played a critical role in transforming the team at DoIT to provide the skills and expertise to implement the Mayor’s commitment to leveraging data and technology to create a more efficient, effective and innovative City government. This has meant adding new skills to the team to increase the focus on software engineering and analytics, improving the department’s commercial partnerships to drive savings for the City and identifying ground-breaking civic partnerships, including hosting regular meetings with local female tech startup owners. Berman built a career promoting government innovation during over 10 years at IBM, where she worked closely with government agencies in cities and countries across the world to leverage technology and analytics to improve the services they provide to their residents. Berman advised governments on a variety of issues, from targeting personalized services through analytics to normalizing program offerings to simplify the delivery process and make them understandable to residents. Throughout her time at IBM, Berman tailored cutting-edge business and data models, from processes to analytic algorithms for large government organizations in order to accelerate their own modernization efforts, providing an incredibly valuable skill set for the work she continues at DoIT. Brenna earned her bachelor’s degree and Masters in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. She resides in Chicago with her husband and two sons.

John Tolva

John Tolva is the president of PositivEnergy Practice, an urban systems engineering firm based on data-driven decision-making for sustainable new building design, retrofits, and urban master planning. John’s career has focused on developing and applying technology to improve the urban environment. From 2011 to 2013 he was Chief Technology Officer for the City of Chicago, leveraging technology to streamline public services through more efficient data-sharing, digital communications, and next-generation infrastructure. He led the development of ‘The City of Chicago Technology Plan’, an initiative that sets forth a series of public-private strategies to accelerate economic growth, build educated and digitally-engaged communities and workforce, improve government services, and reduce costs through technology. In 2012, the White House recognized John as a ‘Champion of Change’ as part of a group of creative individuals engaged in building stronger communities through innovative approaches to problem-solving. Prior to joining the City, he was Director of Citizenship and Technology at IBM Corp, where he worked on the firm’s ‘smarter cities’ initiative, advising cities how to incorporate data analytics into planning and operations. John led the City Forward project, the first global aggregator and visualizer of urban data sets. In 2006 he was honored as one of ’40 Under 40’ in the business community by Crain’s Chicago Business.

CityWorks: a UI LABS Collaboration

CityWorks will be the global hub for urban infrastructure innovation, setting the standard for the future of cities everywhere. Urban infrastructure forms the backbone of our cities, our economy, and society; however, massive scale and complexity have limited our ability to monitor and improve its performance. From water security to energy burdens, from multi-modal congestion to first responder deployment, the need for creative new approaches that are effective at city scale is greater than ever. To achieve a sustainable platform for economic innovation and livability, we must be smart about how we build, update, and use urban infrastructure, which itself must become “smart” – combining new ideas in infrastructure design, materials, and management with advances in computing and data analysis. CityWorks will bring organizations together to facilitate cross-sector collaboration among companies and build on the expertise and advances from Illinois universities and national labs, with deep input and involvement from the City of Chicago. CityWorks will enable experiments at scale to develop real solutions for the marketplace, so that, if successful, they can continue and be extended to have impact in other cities.

UI LABS is a Chicago-based research and commercialization collaborative, bringing Universities + Industries together to define problems, design partnerships and deliver scalable solutions to tomorrow’s most important challenges. UI LABS brings together Universities + Industries, along with National Labs, Civic and Government partners, to solve complex challenges no one sector or player could address on their own. We break down the barriers between stakeholders and provide a neutral platform for collaboration, curating unique and diverse partnerships. The creation of UI LABS was driven by an understanding of the need to bring together multiple parties to research, develop and apply solutions to critical economic and industrial challenges, and to attract and retain the best and brightest, enhancing Chicago and the Midwest as a destination for talent and technology.