Building synthetic cities with Myrna Bittner and Edmonton-based RUNWITHIT Synthetics

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Remember Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum's character from Jurassic Park? He's a scientist interested in an esoteric branch of mathematics called chaos theory, the study of unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws.

I'd like unpack that preceding paragraph into three points:

1. Chaos theory is legit form of math. 
2. Jeff Golblum's character Malcolm was awesome and goes onto appear in two sequels.
3. Unpredictably is what makes the future complicated.

Today's podcast focuses primarily on this third point.

If we knew what would happen when we introduce change we'd always make better decisions. We don't, however, always know what the repercussions will be.

Or do we?

Myrna Bittner and her company RUNWITHIT Synthetics have devised a way to construct synthetic cities for the express purpose of gaining a better understanding of how the introduction of "unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws" impacts the whole.

To quote Bittner, "we do that all using what we call synthetic modeling, which is like SimCity except for real, for real cities, for real populations, for climate events."

BAM. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Bio

Myrna Bittner

Myrna is the CEO and Co-Founder of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, an advanced data modelling and visualization company designing decarbonization, sustainability, equity, resilience, and growth initiatives globally.   Myrna is passionate about connecting today's technology, policy, and infrastructure choices to data about the impacts and outcomes for people and our planet. 

Last year, seven years after incorporation, the growing RUNWITHIT team celebrated numerous international awards, including the United Nation’s Global Call for Decarbonization, Taiwan’s Top Technology Gold Medal, Toyota Mobility Foundation’s City Architecture of Tomorrow Challenge, NATO’s Space Awareness, USAF’s AFWERX Showcase, Airbus Defence “Beyond Net-Zero," along with the “Most Edmonton” YEG Startup Company. 
 
RUNWITHIT is a women-led, Certified Aboriginal Business, with a GBA+ Certified team of diverse and talented 3D animators, designers, and scientists in social, data, computing, and engineering disciplines. 

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.