When your home knows you better than you do, will it serve you or control you?

Smart cities are not just science fiction anymore. They are here, in our homes, and they are shaping how we live, work, and age. From talking thermostats to self-driving neighborhoods, “smart” technology is no longer futuristic, it is becoming the new normal.

In Smart Cities: The Sci-Fi Reality, we will explore how AI is weaving itself into everything around us: helping people age in place, automating everyday life, and even designing entire communities. The question is no longer if the grid, the home, and the car will become “intelligent,” it’s how and to what end.

Host and AI leader Bridget K. Burke will introduce the landscape of next-generation communities with real-world examples. Then two renowned experts will dive into the reality today:

• Professor Ken Goldberg (UC Berkeley) will explore how robotics and automation are primed for a post-pandemic surge as they begin integrating into infrastructure and everyday life, forcing us to rethink work, collaboration, and the human-machine boundary.

• Dr. Jane Macfarlane (UC Berkeley / LBNL) will look into the mobility and infrastructure layer of smart cities—data, analytics, geospatial mapping, energy, and simulation systems that are shaping what “smart” means for cities and citizens. Asking how to make them equitable, efficient and human-centered.

Join us for a thought-provoking journey into the promises and perils of our rapidly approaching future. Convenience and automation bring opportunity but also complexity and questions of control. Are intelligent systems simply handing us more freedom or quietly deciding what we can and can’t do?

Whether you are excited, skeptical or simply curious, you will leave with a sharper view of the trade-offs we are making, knowingly or not, in the cities and homes of tomorrow.

Registration highly recommended.
Adults and high school students only! Free wine reception at 6:30pm for pre-registered guests. Waitlist line opens up at 6:45 on a first come, first served basis. 

Host: Bridget K. Burke

Bridget K. Burke is a technology leader and educator dedicated to helping communities understand and shape the rapidly emerging world of artificial intelligence, robotics, and our built world. As Principal Investigator at BridgetLab.ai, she researches responsible, human-centered systems, particularly embodied AI operating in healthcare, security, and civic infrastructure.

Bridget brings a unique blend of strategy, technology, and public engagement. Her career spans over three decades at the front lines of enterprise transformation, automation, and global security. She served as Chief Information Officer & Chief Security Officer at HID Global Corporation., Chief Technology Officer of Interlogix (a UTC Corporation company), and Director of Security Enterprise Management at Harvard University.

Today, Bridget focuses on helping people navigate AI as citizens, consumers, caregivers, and creators, not just users. Her recent article “The Omnioid Era,” offers a provocative exploration of how embodied AI systems are transitioning from sci-fi into service roles across care, mobility and infrastructure. She also teaches on the privacy, security, ethics, and agency of embodied AI “smart” systems, serves on the HIMSS Global Professional Development Committee, and is an active member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

Equally at home in global innovation hubs and local public spaces, Bridget divides her time between Mill Valley and Manhattan, but credits her creative inspiration for this event to her favorite chair tucked inside Mill Valley Library, where she dreamed up Smart Cities: The Sci-Fi Reality while re-reading Larry Gonick’s epic series The Cartoon History of the Universe.

Featured Speaker: Professor Ken Goldberg

Professor Ken Goldberg has been interested in robots, rockets, and rebels since he was a kid. He’s skeptical about claims that humans are on the verge of being replaced by Superintelligent machines yet optimistic about the potential of technology to improve the human condition.

Ken developed the first provably complete algorithm for part feeding and the first robot on the Internet. In 1995 he was awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellowship and in 2005 was elected IEEE Fellow: "For contributions to networked telerobotics and geometric algorithms for automation." Ken founded UC Berkeley's Art, Technology, and Culture public lecture series in 1997 serves on the Advisory Board of the RoboGlobal Exchange Traded Fund.

Ken is Chief Scientist at Ambidextrous Robotics and on the Editorial Board of the journal Science Robotics. He served as Chair of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department and co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. He has published over 300 papers, 3 books, and holds 9 US Patents. Ken’s artwork has been featured in 70 art exhibits including the 2000 Whitney Biennial. Short documentary films he co-wrote were selected for Sundance and one was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Currently, Professor Goldberg is President of the Robot Learning Foundation and Chair of the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Lab Steering Committee. He is co-founder of Ambi Robotics and Jacobi Robotics and is the William S. Floyd Distinguished Chair of Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he leads research in robotics and automation: grasping, manipulation, and learning for applications in industry, homes, agriculture, and robot-assisted surgery. He lives in the Bay Area and is madly in love with his wife, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain, and their two daughters.

Featured Speaker: Dr. Jane Macfarlane

Dr. Macfarlane has been a pioneer in applying advanced computing technology to complex real-world problems. With a passion for developing unique algorithmic solutions to large-scale data analytics needs, her background has given her a superior command and intuition for the rapidly emerging area of big data analytics. With a PhD in the application of AI to dynamic systems, she has a unique set of skills that allow her to bring an informed and realistic approach to the challenges that the exponentially increasing pace of technology development is creating. With the ability to master both the business perspective and the technology perspective, Dr. Macfarlane has risen not only as a thought leader and scientific manager but also as an innovator. As an author of over 25 patents, she is known for her mastery of large-scale, geospatial analytics as well as her creative solutions in the emerging field of next-generation transportation systems.

She began her career as a researcher in knowledge-based systems at the DOE National Research Laboratories; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. She was then recruited by AT&T. Later, she accepted an executive position by General Motors in Detroit, where she led an effort that mapped the vehicle order and production order management processes for all General Motors assembly plants. Dr. Macfarlane moved within General Motors to become the Director of Advanced Technology Planning at OnStar. OnStar was the first at-scale consumer telematics solution. Subsequently, she was recruited to consult in the geospatial industry. Mapping products like this serve as the basis for all in-vehicle and smart phone navigation systems as well as the many data analytics tools in use today. Dr. Macfarlane accepted the VP of Research position with NAVTEQ – at that time, a business unit of Nokia, later renamed HERE where she became the Chief Scientist.

In 2017, she joined the UC Berkeley / LBNL. In this position, she led the development of a Big Data Veracity/Machine Learning project focused on understanding how to manage the complex dynamics of large metropolitan regions. The project focused on the use of AI and High-Performance Computing to analyze large volumes of real-world transportation data for the purpose of understanding mobility dynamics. This led to her current role as the Director of the Smart Cities Research Center in the Institute of Transportation Studies. She also has an Affiliate Scientist role at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is currently driving an effort to get this research into the hands of practitioners.