D Brent MesserBrent Messer is an award-winning thought leader, best-selling author, and international speaker on the world of leadership, broadband, smart cities, agile, IoT, digital transformation, and innovation in the public sector. For over 25 years, Brent hasbeen focused on adding value to organizations through technology in the private sector, public sector, and academia, and has been recognized as one of the most influential CIOs in North America and one of the most successful government innovators in the world.He is the former Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the City of Chattanooga, focusing on innovation and digital transformation in local government and transforming the City into an agile and innovative civic tech powerhouse that is recognized the world over as one of the most innovative cities in the United States and known as the "Gig City" for their 25-gigabit municipally-owned broadband network.Under Brent's leadership, he was named to State Scoop's Golden Gov: City Executive of the Year in 2020, and Chattanooga was one of the first two cities in the United States to be invited to work with the G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance and named the number one city in the United States to work-from-home. Chattanooga has won the Smart Cities Connect Smart 50 award five years in a row and is one of the top five digital cities in America also five years in a row. Other awards include the IDC Smart Cities North America Award for Education in 2019 and the Certified What Works Cities Gold Certification for 2021. Read More Read Less