Leading Cities drives action and solutions for a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future through innovation and education for entrepreneurs, governments, and corporations. 

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About Leading Cities

Leading Cities is a Boston-based global non-profit founded by Dublin, Boston, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Lyon, Hamburg, Lisbon, Zapopan, Vancouver, and Haifa. It was built on the philosophy that cities, which for the first time represent most of the world’s population, are essential to overcome our great challenges—climate change, human equity, and technology development. Originally established in 2008 at Northeastern University, it later spun off as an independent organization expanding beyond research to advance government sustainability and resiliency. Since then, Leading Cities has evolved to provide a wider range of services for governments, start-ups, and corporations. To connect its global networks, LaunchPad 11 was launched as the first metaverse ecosystem for Smart & Resilient City innovators by clustering entrepreneurs, investors, and decision-makers. Its signature program, the QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge, is considered one of the Top 5 Govtech accelerators in the world.

First 10 Founding Members

Leading Cities' network of over 3,000 municipal leaders started as a collaboration between ten cities focused on urban research and best practices. These 10 Founding Cities helped forge the direction, vision, tools and opportunities now accessible by any municipal government in the world.  

Barcelona

Spain

Boston

USA

Dublin

Ireland

Haifa

Israel

Hamburg

Germany

Lisboa

Portugal

Lyon

France

Rio de Janeiro

Brazil

Vancouver

Canada

Zapopan

Mexico

Lee Feldman

Senior Advisor

Zencity

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Jennifer James

VP Market Development, nDimensional

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Kevin P. Martin

Partner

CohnReznick

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Abhi Nemani

Founder/Managing Director

EthosLabs

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