Reflecting on Ford’s City of Tomorrow Symposium

By Jim Hackett, Chairman, Ford Smart Mobility LLC

This week, Ford Motor Company used the North American International Auto Show in Detroit as the site for an entirely different conversation about the future and mobility.

With our partners at TED, the New York Times and Vice Media, we gathered a broad range of thinkers from poets to mayors to have a conversation about the City of Tomorrow. The discussions offered a wide variety of thoughts about the challenges we are facing, the opportunity in front of us.

One point of agreement in it all? The solutions will start with deep understanding of the human needs of mobility.

This week’s conversation left me and hopefully the hundreds of people who participated in the sessions appreciating that there are reasons to be optimistic about the opportunity to invent this future.

Together, we can build a tomorrow that holds the promise of new jobs, new opportunities for cities to cure historical problems, and the opportunity to liberate the human journey.