Summary: In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I have a great conversation with Urban Strategist Zaheer Allam. You might remember I spoke with Zaheer earlier in the year in Episode 158 and when COVID-19 broke out I knew I wanted to catch up with him again. So this podcast episode is another audio from the YouTube series I've been doing catching up with previous podcast guests during the pandemic. We recorded this chat on the 4th of May, and since then Zaheer tells me he's doing fine, he's still doing lots of writing because borders are still closed, but work is slowly resuming. In this conversation, Zaheer tells us what the situation is like in Mauritius at the time of recording, what's changed such as working from home, flexible work options in general and the disruptions for Zaheer personally. We cover a big range of things all along the themes of how COVID has impacted every industry and brought to the forefront a lot of Smart concepts, such as the importance of data, digital literacy, community engagement and cross-disciplinary approaches. Zaheer tells us why systems thinking is so important in Smart Communities, always but now especially as we move into a post-COVID world. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a digital economy, of localising supply chains, investing in resilient infrastructure and the democratisation of data. We finish our chat discussing the ways Smart Cities and Communities, including the 15 minute city concept, can help us build more sustainable, resilient, human-centred places to live, work and play. As always we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Zaheer on LinkedIn and find him on Facebook Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.
