Hello Logan! I’m writing this column to you from New York City, where I’m one of 47 mayors from 17 countries chosen to be part of a Harvard University training program.
This trip is for work – but not one cent of it is funded by ratepayers.
Often I talk about New York as the only city that comes close to Logan’s diversity.
This time, I’m visiting the Big Apple to take part in an amazing opportunity called the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.
Over the next 4 days, I’ll be learning from the best leaders in the world and bringing back great ideas to Logan.
Our city has never been part of this Leadership Initiative before, and I’m excited to see what I can learn from this firstof-its-kind program.
I heard about it while I was in Cairo, representing Logan at the United Nation’s Quality of Life conference and the World Urban Forum.
This course is now in its 9th year, and it’s highly sought after by cities around the world.
The Bloomberg Centre for Cities at Harvard University – a collaboration between Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and Bloomberg Philanthropies – runs the Initiative, equipping mayors and senior council officials to tackle complex challenges in their cities and improve the quality of life of their residents.
Working with Harvard faculty, staff and students, alongside experts in local government and executive leadership from all over the world, we will be learning how to solve problems through better use of data and evidence, while driving collaboration and innovation inside council and other sectors in our city.
We’ll bring our intensive classroom learnings back home for the benefit of our cities – and our organisations – so we can deliver results for our communities.
In this intensive classroom part of the program, we spend 12 hours a day learning about new ways to make our Councils better deliver for our communities.
While I’m gone this week, Deputy Mayor Scott Bannan is Acting Mayor, and I know he’ll be working hard for you as he always does.
In next week’s column, I’ll tell you about some of the things I learned, and how we can make even more amazing things happen in Logan.
