Helping Local Leadership Navigate a Global World
Project Highlights
Dr Hochadel runs large scale projects for both public and private clients around the world. The following is a sample of some of her recent work.
The Urban Lab at Expo City Dubai
What is the Urban Lab?
Expo City Dubai's Urban Lab IS the city.
A fully accessible testbed environment city-wide. This is what makes Expo City Dubai unique and one of the most intriguing places to deploy solutions addressing urban challenges. A city-wide testbed, with a fully connected technical infrastructure is a blank canvas for innovation. Lab
Urban Lab is use-case driven and dedicated to exploring, understanding, and addressing the challenges future focused cities are facing – namely balancing human-centric city services that are both fiscally and environmentally sustainable.
Urban Lab aligns with the core values of Expo City Dubai, ensuring that every initiative undertaken enriches a citizen’s life in a sustainable way. Integrating these principles is essential to creating true value for the city, its residents and visitors, demonstrating scalable and monetizable solutions that set an example for other cities worldwide. Urban Lab was set up to tackle the twin challenges of bringing innovation to the market and preparing the market for innovations.
Global City Innovation Twins
The Global City Innovation Twins programme, established by Dr Hochadel, establishes strategic partnerships between cities worldwide to foster innovation, economic growth, and sustainable development. By pairing cities with complementary strengths and challenges, the programme facilitates the exchange of knowledge, technology, and best practices to address urban issues effectively.
For example, the UK–Republic of Korea Innovation Twins Programme celebrates the longstanding diplomatic relations between the UK and South Korea by pairing cities such as Belfast and Sejong, Liverpool City Region and Busan, Birmingham and Ulsan, and Glasgow and Daegu. These collaborations aim to support job creation, promote shared socio-economic prosperity, and facilitate lasting research and innovation partnerships.
The programme focuses on three key areas:
Civic and policy knowledge exchange: Sharing governance strategies and policies to improve urban management.
Academic collaboration: Engaging in joint research initiatives to drive scientific and technological advancements.
Business collaboration: Encouraging partnerships between enterprises to stimulate economic growth and innovation.
By connecting cities globally, the Innovation Twins programme leverages shared knowledge and resources to tackle common challenges, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for citizens and promoting sustainable urban development.
People focused future cities.
Cities are more than just names on a map. Cities are where people live, work and play. More than ever, with climate change, pandemics and mass migration - cities are on the front lines of major change around the globe. We must not forget that cities are about people and when we think about innovation and technology to improve cities, we must think about the impact on people first to make cities better!
Upcoming Speaking Engagements…
ASTRI Tech Applied Summit, Hong Kong
Dr Hochadel is speaking on 10 February 2025 in Hong Kong at the ASTRI Tech Applied Summit on: Smart Cities – Technologies for a Better Tomorrow. Learn More
Previous Events…
Borneo, Malaysia World Congress
2 - 6 October: Dr Hochadel will be speaking at the World Congress on Innovation and Technology on: Decarbonising Cities
World Mayors Forum, Seoul, Korea
Dubai, Mobility ME Live Conference 2025
24th–25th of June 2025
Dr Hochadel will be speaking on: Transforming urban landscapes: the impact of clean & autonomous transportation on city design.
24 - 26 September: Dr Hochadel will be attending the World Mayors Forum in Seoul. The theme this year is “Liveable and Sustainable Cities: Forging an Inclusive and Resilient Future”.
Dr Hochadel’s BOOK:
Local Leadership in a Global Era: Policy and Behaviour Change in Cities
Praise for Local Leadership in a Global Era:
“Amy Hochadel has provided a practical set of policy recommendations for transformative, local city officials seeking to create entrepreneurial and sustainable global cities.” Keith Clarke, CBE, Chairman, Future Cities Catapult
“Local Leadership in a Global Era presents a unique look at the intersection of behaviour and policy in local government acting on the global stage. This book is a significant contribution to the body of literature in International Political Economy.” Leila Simona Talani, King's College London, UK
“Cities and local governments around the world are currently undergoing an exciting, dynamic and complex set of changes. In this important work Amy Hochadel provides a unique perspective to our understanding of 'how' and 'why' local elected officials are playing an increasingly influential role in the global marketplace.” Alan W. Cafruny, Hamilton College, USA