I was speaking with our lawyer in Park City this week, and he commented to me that he wouldn't be going into the office next week because Old Town would be too hectic with the Sundance Film Festival going on. His office is right on Main Street.

When small mountain towns host major international events, there are going to be spillover effects. This is true of Sundance in Park City (population ~8,500) and it is true of the World Economic Forum, which was hosted in Davos (population ~10,000) this past week.

Perhaps the most obvious impact is that people can rent out their homes for large sums of money. And so lots of people both do that and try to profit maximize while doing it. Here are some anecdotes from Davos (via NZZ):

Ten days before the WEF, there are still 25 listings on the Airbnb internet platform. The prices here range from 8,000 to 56,000 Swiss francs. The son of an apartment owner says that his family receives 12,000 francs a week for their three-room apartment, which is quite close to the convention center. However, he says he assumes that they could achieve significantly more. The family rents out the apartment through an intermediary.

Another interesting impact in Davos happens on the retail side (also via NZZ):

According to expert Robert Weinert, the average rent per square meter of retail space in Davos is 248 Swiss francs. A businessperson renting a storefront of 80 square meters must therefore pay almost 20,000 francs in rent per year. However, if that business vacates the store during the WEF, it can earn 60,000 francs – three times the annual rent for the facilities.

What this means is that some retail spaces remain vacant all year, just so that they can be available for when the WEF arrives and people need temporary commercial spaces. And why wouldn't this be the case: 20,000 francs for the year or 60,000 francs for a week. If I'm the landlord, I'll take the additional 40,000 francs and not think about the property for the rest of the year.

Of course, if you're trying to create a vibrant community with things, like, occupied retail spaces, then this isn't ideal.

The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum are piloting an initiative right now called the CommonPass framework, and a number of airlines, including Lufthansa and Swiss International Air, are expected to start rolling it out before the end of the year.

What the CommonPass does is allow people and travelers to verify their health status via a digital certificate on their phone. Right now it can confirm that you've tested negative for COVID-19 and eventually it will confirm if you've received a valid vaccination.

The framework also asks countries to publish their travel entry criteria in a standard format, so that it's easy to update and it can be globally understood.

Of course, much like all of the exposure alert apps that are out there, this is only really useful if people and companies actually start using it. But the travel industry knows that for customer confidence to return, people are going to need to feel safe again. And a digital health pass is one way to help with that.

Here is a short video explaining how the CommonPass works. If you can't see it below, click here.

MIT Senseable City Lab and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization are hosting a conference next month on the impact that artificial intelligence is having on our cities. Here is a summary of the event:

As AI (Artificial Intelligence) becomes ubiquitous, it transforms many aspects of the environment we live in. In cities, AI is opening up a new era of an endlessly reconfigurable environment. Empowered by robust computers and elegant algorithms that can handle massive data sets, cities can make more informed decisions and create feedback loops between humans and the urban environment. It is what we call the raise of UI (urban intelligence).

The 2019 Forum on Future Cities, organized by MIT Senseable City Lab and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization, will focus on four aspects of the UI transformation: autonomous vehicles, ubiquitous data collection, advanced data analytics, and governing innovation. Panelists include mayors, academics, senior industry leaders and members of civil society to explore such topics from different points of view, highlighting the scientific and technological challenges, the critical collective decisions we as a society will have to make, and the exciting possibilities ahead.

The forum takes place on April 12th in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And since it looks to deal with many of the topics that we talk about on this blog, I figured that some of you might be interested in attending. If so, you can register here.

I was speaking with our lawyer in Park City this week, and he commented to me that he wouldn't be going into the office next week because Old Town would be too hectic with the Sundance Film Festival going on. His office is right on Main Street.

When small mountain towns host major international events, there are going to be spillover effects. This is true of Sundance in Park City (population ~8,500) and it is true of the World Economic Forum, which was hosted in Davos (population ~10,000) this past week.

Perhaps the most obvious impact is that people can rent out their homes for large sums of money. And so lots of people both do that and try to profit maximize while doing it. Here are some anecdotes from Davos (via NZZ):

Ten days before the WEF, there are still 25 listings on the Airbnb internet platform. The prices here range from 8,000 to 56,000 Swiss francs. The son of an apartment owner says that his family receives 12,000 francs a week for their three-room apartment, which is quite close to the convention center. However, he says he assumes that they could achieve significantly more. The family rents out the apartment through an intermediary.

Another interesting impact in Davos happens on the retail side (also via NZZ):

According to expert Robert Weinert, the average rent per square meter of retail space in Davos is 248 Swiss francs. A businessperson renting a storefront of 80 square meters must therefore pay almost 20,000 francs in rent per year. However, if that business vacates the store during the WEF, it can earn 60,000 francs – three times the annual rent for the facilities.

What this means is that some retail spaces remain vacant all year, just so that they can be available for when the WEF arrives and people need temporary commercial spaces. And why wouldn't this be the case: 20,000 francs for the year or 60,000 francs for a week. If I'm the landlord, I'll take the additional 40,000 francs and not think about the property for the rest of the year.

Of course, if you're trying to create a vibrant community with things, like, occupied retail spaces, then this isn't ideal.

The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum are piloting an initiative right now called the CommonPass framework, and a number of airlines, including Lufthansa and Swiss International Air, are expected to start rolling it out before the end of the year.

What the CommonPass does is allow people and travelers to verify their health status via a digital certificate on their phone. Right now it can confirm that you've tested negative for COVID-19 and eventually it will confirm if you've received a valid vaccination.

The framework also asks countries to publish their travel entry criteria in a standard format, so that it's easy to update and it can be globally understood.

Of course, much like all of the exposure alert apps that are out there, this is only really useful if people and companies actually start using it. But the travel industry knows that for customer confidence to return, people are going to need to feel safe again. And a digital health pass is one way to help with that.

Here is a short video explaining how the CommonPass works. If you can't see it below, click here.

MIT Senseable City Lab and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization are hosting a conference next month on the impact that artificial intelligence is having on our cities. Here is a summary of the event:

As AI (Artificial Intelligence) becomes ubiquitous, it transforms many aspects of the environment we live in. In cities, AI is opening up a new era of an endlessly reconfigurable environment. Empowered by robust computers and elegant algorithms that can handle massive data sets, cities can make more informed decisions and create feedback loops between humans and the urban environment. It is what we call the raise of UI (urban intelligence).

The 2019 Forum on Future Cities, organized by MIT Senseable City Lab and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization, will focus on four aspects of the UI transformation: autonomous vehicles, ubiquitous data collection, advanced data analytics, and governing innovation. Panelists include mayors, academics, senior industry leaders and members of civil society to explore such topics from different points of view, highlighting the scientific and technological challenges, the critical collective decisions we as a society will have to make, and the exciting possibilities ahead.

The forum takes place on April 12th in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And since it looks to deal with many of the topics that we talk about on this blog, I figured that some of you might be interested in attending. If so, you can register here.