Alby Bocanegra

Mr. Bocanegra currently serves as Chief Future Officer and Founder at The Urban Futurist Inc, a consultancy and advisory organization that is shaping the cities of the future. Alby spends his time studying future technologies and makes predictions of the impact and implications they’ll have on cities, the people that live in them and the ecosystems that will need to be developed to ensure that all can benefit. As an advisor and consultant, he shapes strategies, governance models and facilitates engagements focused on delivering a better tomorrow for people.  Alby also lends his expertise as an Advisory Board Member on Digital Twins to the World Economic Forum. 

Prior to founding TUF Inc, he was Vice President of Urban Technology and Global City Partnerships at Mastercard. In his role, Alby led Mastercard’s partnerships with local governments, industry, academia, development banks, NGO’s and civil society.  Under his leadership, he scaled the City Possible framework from a small network of 25 cities to a global ecosystem comprising of over 335 cities as well as over 50 industry, academic, and civil society partners across 6 continents. His also led the creation of the 24-Hour Cities Network, made up of over 100 government officials, academics and advocates focused on the night-time governance, which included the facilitation dozens of in person and virtual convenings that led to published summaries and strategies that help cities build programming and governance models to activate their night-time economy.  

Alby spent three years with the Mayor’s Office in the City of New York, with the majority of it serving as Interim Chief Technology Officer. It was there that he co-founded the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights with the cities of Amsterdam and Barcelona as well as the United Nations, which now boasts over 50 global cities and growing. He also oversaw the delivery of multiple innovative programs; including the expansion of community-driven initiatives with academia and industry partners, led ambitious, exploratory, and ground-breaking projects to tackle urbanization, and the roll out of universal broadband creating greater equity, digital literacy, privacy and security for all New Yorkers.

He began his civil service career with the City and County of San Francisco’s Department of Technology, where he designed a tech talent program focused on attracting expertise from industry, which in turn generated capacity across the city to adopt a user-driven approach to the delivery of government services. 

Prior to working in local government, he spent 10 years in academia, fostering new partnerships with cities, native tribes and governments, with his final stint at the University of Southern California where he focused on talent growth Diversity Equity & inclusion. He also served on LA Mayor Garcetti’s Veteran employment committee.

Alby proudly lives his life in service to others, starting with his career in the US Military in 1997.