How does one of the fastest growing cities in the United States keep improving its services without simply hiring more people? In this episode, we speak with Paul Grimes, City Manager, and Brandon Opiela, Chief Data and AI Officer, both of the City of McKinney, Texas, USA, about the answer they have landed on: reforming the way work gets done.

We explore McKinney's High Performance Organisation culture, which networks talent across teams and pushes decision making down to whoever is closest to a problem. Paul explains why protecting space for staff to experiment is a leadership priority, while Brandon describes the results in practice: an internal innovation fund called Project Magpie, an Innovation Academy that teaches lean process thinking in plain language, and the data centralisation work that gives AI something trustworthy to build on. We also discuss the city's AI sandbox, where staff with no coding background build tools for their own departments.

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• (00:00:00) - Intro
• (00:01:37) - Teaser question: If you could choose one animal to describe McKinney, which would it be and why?
• (00:04:01) - Guest background
• (00:07:51) - What Makes McKinney Unique
• (00:12:07) - High Performance Organization Culture
• (00:17:41) - Centralizing Municipal Data
• (00:24:10) - Delegating Decision Making
• (00:27:00) - Providing Tinkering Space
• (00:29:01) - Project Magpie Explained
• (00:31:47) - The Innovation Academy
• (00:34:37) - AI Sandbox And Vibe Coding
• (00:38:32) - Overcoming Innovation Distractions
• (00:40:41) - Current City Challenges
• (00:43:05) - Advice For Other Cities
• (00:47:10) - Segment: Flip the Script
• (00:52:08) - Ending question: “To you, what is a Smart City?”

In this episode, we cross the Atlantic to Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA, to explore how a city builds a more intentional innovation culture from the inside.

We are joined by Ishu Gupta, Innovation and Data Strategy Lead for the City of Green Bay, who works at the intersection of change management, technology, and data inside the Mayor's Office.

We look at why Green Bay is moving from solution-led innovation towards defining the problem first, his view of data as civic infrastructure, and the structures the city has built around it. We also touch on data-informed community engagement around public safety, procurement reform, and what separates a useful conversation about AI from the hype.

To go deeper on the thinking behind this episode, Ishu has shared his own piece on why process comes before technology for city innovators. You can read it here:
https://ishugupta.substack.com/p/for-city-innovators-process-before

Like our show? Remember to subscribe and rate it!

Want to join us for an episode? Fill out the form on our Podcast Page.

And for more insights, visit our BABLE Smart Cities Knowledge Hub

• (00:00:00) - Intro
• (00:01:20) - Teaser question: Green Bay is well known for the packers, but if you had to describe the city beyond football within the three emojis, what would the emojis be?
• (00:02:51) - Guest background
• (00:07:49) - Green Bay's Unique Context
• (00:10:34) - Data as Civic Infrastructure
• (00:17:56) - Problem-First Innovation
• (00:24:05) - Data-Informed Community Engagement
• (00:27:08) - Streamlining City Procurement
• (00:32:10) - AI in Local Government
• (00:35:55) - Unlocking Meaningful Innovation
• (00:37:08) - The Role of Leadership
• (00:39:02) - Segment: Inspire Us
• (00:40:21) - Ending question: “To you, what is a Smart City?”

In this episode of Smart in the City – The BABLE Podcast, we head to Kyiv, Ukraine, to explore Mental Guard, a city-level mental health initiative embedded within the public education system.
We are joined by Kateryna Mohylnytska, Head of the Mental Health Project and Chief Communications Officer of the Kyiv Digital Agency, Ukraine.

Kateryna explains how Mental Guard moves schools from reaction to prevention, noticing early signals before they become a crisis. She walks us through its three pillars: early wellbeing assessment, rapid human response, and coordination through trusted digital tools. The conversation looks closely at how the city safeguards sensitive data, designs for trust, and co-creates with children, teachers, and psychologists.

We also discuss what success looks like beyond numbers, the challenge of scaling without losing humanity, and practical advice for cities and companies that want to build similar support systems.

Like our show? Remember to subscribe and rate it!

Want to join us for an episode? Fill out the form on our Podcast Page.

And for more insights, visit our BABLE Smart Cities Knowledge Hub

• (00:00:00) - Intro
• (00:02:26) - Teaser question: Could you describe Mental Guard with only three emojis?
• (00:03:22) - Guest background
• (00:05:28) - Pressures in Kyiv Schools
• (00:07:40) - The Mental Health Gap
• (00:09:16) - What is Mental Guard?
• (00:11:00) - City-Level Infrastructure
• (00:12:26) - Digital Trust and Communication
• (00:14:40) - Privacy and Safeguarding
• (00:16:51) - Prevention and Early Detection
• (00:19:25) - Measuring Success
• (00:21:33) - Advice for Other Cities
• (00:23:23) - Scaling the Initiative
• (00:25:48) - Collaborating with Companies
• (00:28:11) - Open Floor
• (00:29:41) - Segment: Inspire us
• (00:31:02) - Ending question: “To you, what is a Smart City?”