Jesse Shapins (he/him)

For over a decade, Jesse Shapins has been leading groundbreaking work at the intersection of design, technology and city-building. Currently, Jesse lives in Toronto and is Director of Development and Public Realm at Sidewalk Labs, where he leads community engagement, strategy, design and prototyping for how to responsibly integrate technology into cities to create more inclusive, vibrant urban neighbourhoods.

In 2004, before smartphones, Jesse invented Yellow Arrow, a seminal project in geospatial media that allowed people around the world to uncover and share hidden stories in their environments using text messaging.

Jesse holds a BA in Urban Studies from Columbia University and a PhD in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. At Harvard, he also served on the Faculty of Architecture and Co-Founded metaLAB (at) Harvard, a Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society lab that has become a locus for research in AI ethics.