June 3rd, 2025
3rd Smart City & AI Innovation Symposium
We successfully hosted the Smart City & AI Innovation Symposium 2025 on June 3rd! 🏙️🤖
The Smart Cities and AI Innovations Symposium was a day-long event that brings together interdisciplinary professionals from academia, industry, government, research institutes, and non-profits to explore how artificial intelligence transforms our urban environments. Hosted in the Avaya Auditorium on the University of Texas at Austin's main campus, the symposium featured a dynamic program with distinguished speakers from leading universities across Texas and beyond, alongside practitioners advancing smart mobility and AI applications in our cities.
This year's symposium focused on emerging technologies and real-world AI applications, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Digital Twins, Computer Vision, and GeoAI. Attendees had the opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary networking, including a dedicated lunch session and collaborative networking activities. The symposium was designed to foster knowledge exchange, relationship building, and collaborative problem-solving as AI technologies continue to shape urban life.
It was an incredible gathering of leading scholars, industry experts, and innovators discussing how AI is transforming our urban lives—from sustainable transportation to smarter infrastructure and beyond.
| Agenda |
* Presentation files are available (linked to each presenter)
AI in Action: Industry Innovations Driving Smart Cities
Explore cutting-edge developments shaping urban futures—from emerging trends in civic technology and physical AI integration, to digital twins powered by NVIDIA Omniverse—and innovative tools that use AI to analyze the evolution of AI itself. Industry leaders from Esri, Moii.Ai, Nvidia, and KUNGFU.AI will showcase how their work transforms infrastructure, planning, and knowledge systems to create more intelligent, sustainable urban environments.
Dominik Tarolli, Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri)
Deepak Upadya, Moii.Ai
Andy Lin, Mark III / Nvidia
Steve Kramer, Ph.D., KUNGFU.AI
Panel Moderated by Anupam Saraph, Ph.D., Systems Innovators
Frontiers of Urban Intelligence: Academic Insights on Smart Cities
Learn from faculty leading academic research at the intersection of AI, urban systems, and resilience. Presentations from researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Houston will explore human-centered digital twins, AI-driven solutions for food insecurity, and advanced modeling of human-disaster-infrastructure networks to support more resilient and equitable communities.
Xinyue Ye, Ph.D., Texas A&M University
Ioannis Kakadiaris, Ph.D., University of Houston
Qisheng Pan, University of Texas at Arlington
Clinton Andrews, Rutgers University
Panel Moderated by Kijin Seong, Ph.D., School of Architecture
Building Smart Cities Together: Cross-Sector Collaboration
Discover how collaborative efforts are driving the design and implementation of smart city solutions with experts from academia, government, and industry. Panelists from UT San Antonio, the University of Houston, WSP Global, the Texas Transportation Institute, and the Northeast Corridor Commission will share lessons learned, opportunities for integration, and the value of working across sectors to achieve urban innovation.
Louis Alcorn, WSP Global, Inc.
Ioannis Kakadiaris, Ph.D., University of Houston
Edgar Kraus, Texas Transportation Institute (TTI)
Christopher Bischak, Northeast Corridor Commission
Panel Moderated by Ryun Jung Lee, Ph.D., UT San Antonio
NextGen Innovators: Lightning Talks from Rising Stars
Learn from emerging scholars at UT Austin—including postdocs, doctoral candidates, and graduate students—presenting innovative research on generative AI guidelines, transportation digital twins, urban system modeling, and coastal flood risk mapping.
Saleh Afroogh, Ph.D., School of Architecture
Yiming Xu, Ph.D., School of Architecture
Huihai Wang, School of Architecture
Armando Ulises Santos Cruz, Cockrell School of Engineering
Q&A Moderated by Kijin Seong, Ph.D., School of Architecture
