Ransomware attacks today are costing governments and businesses billions of dollars and interrupting their operations. A recent ransomware attack on the City of Baltimore cost the city over $18M, and local governments from Riviera Beach and Lake City, Florida paid hackers $1M combined with the hope of getting its systems and data back. Since 2019 there has been a 450% increase in the count of vulnerabilities associated with ransomware and with the world’s acceleration to digital technologies for work and play, the risk of ransomware attack is only going to increase.

I clearly remember the tipping point that got me thinking about. It was December 2018 and I had just landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi to visit my parents for the holidays. As I was waiting to be picked up, I found myself unable to breathe properly. After a quick privilege check and a google search, it became apparent that the state of the environment in New Delhi was dire. Air pollution in India’s capital continues to be responsible for 60,000+ premature deaths every year and reducing life expectancy by at least 7 years.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to rethink & reevaluate the notion of social interaction. Traditionally, social interactions were largely limited to those in society that we physically had access to but with forced lockdowns and artificial inaccessibility in place, people found themselves interacting in societies that were either partially or fully digital. While these digital societies serve some of the core benefits of social interactions in the physical world, such as the opportunities to exchange ideas, spaces to create a sense of belonging, and finding like-minded people, they also induce isolation and augment feelings of disconnection with those in our vicinity deeming the value of physical proximity worthless.

One thing we know about cities is that they are extremely resilient. While the introduction of new markets and technology make our lives easier, they also promote the inherent disparities that already exist in cities.

The most prevalent disruptive technologies in cities today are big data, autonomous vehicles, drones, internet of things, and blockchain, all of which are enabled by mobile network technologies such as 5G. These technologies have played an important role in furthering the safety, security, and operational efficiency within our cities by enabling stakeholders of city services to gather information from daily interactions, form extremely complex and large data sets, and process them and make “better” decisions. In most cases, this notion of “better” tends to be synonymous with increased efficiency and adds predictability to the system dynamics of how cites operate. While this increased predictability can be incredibly useful to ensure city logistics can collaborate and function effectively, we cannot disregard the unintended consequences that introduction of technologies within cities have.

Cities, as we historically know, were formed around concentration of resources, more specifically, food. While historians continue to argue about the origin of cities, there is no doubt that cities today are economic powerhouses that propel society and those who inhabit them to push beyond the limits in every possible sense, for worse, or for good. Humans, among other things, are driven by pursuits.

My favorite way to describe a city is as a complex living organism that fuels the unintentional collision of people, ideas, and stories. This conceptualization was most evident as I traveled around Mexico City, a fascinating mecca for food, culture, and intercultural exchange. Experiencing the active congregation and celebration of people and life in Mexico City has led me to reflect on my own life experiences in New Delhi, the metropolitan capital of India where my family moved when I was 13 to seek better economic opportunities. As a young boy at the time, I found myself inundated with a multitude of emotions - excitement, overwhelm, confusion, and most importantly, curiosity. In hindsight, I attribute that induced curiosity as the single biggest factor that has asymmetrically influenced the opportunities I have had in life, the choices I’ve made, and more broadly, what continues to fuel my current intrigue for cities and technology.