“The smart city family is the most supportive industry I’ve ever worked in.”

Jennifer Sanders

.…looking back on the Dallas Innovation Alliance’s smart cities journey on DIA’s recent eight-year anniversary, via LinkedIn.

Sanders recently marked the eighth anniversary of the Dallas Innovation Alliance by posting on LInkedIn, eight years to the day after DIA “formally launched at the White House during President Obama’s $168 million commitment to smart cities across several agencies.”

“While those 8 years on some days feel like a blink, and other times like 100 years,” she wrote, “I’m so grateful for the learnings, partnerships, personal and professional growth, and impact the organization has made, including the fastest smart city initiative (under 12 months from ideation to ‘in the ground’) of our Smart Cities Living Lab, to expanding regionally with the North Texas Innovation Alliance, and nationally with the National Smart Coalitions Partnership, to launching a growing portfolio of digital inclusion work in 2018 that has served 7500 Dallas households since 2020, and growing quickly with the launch of Connected Dallas.”

Sanders offered her gratitude to DIA Co-Founder Trey Bowles “for taking the leap—talking me down from the ledge as I moved from the certainty of corporate consulting to the roller coaster of entrepreneurship, and all of our partners from Day 1 and along the way.”

She added that the smart city family and DIA “continue to build each other up, sharing learnings and lessons, so we all move faster to serve our communities.”

You can see her post here and photos marking the event here.

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.