Nigel Jacob

Nigel Jacob is the co-founder of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, a civic innovation incubator and research and development lab within Boston City Hall. Nigel’s job is to improve city life through innovative, people-oriented applications of technology and design. Prior to moving to the city of Boston in 2006, Nigel worked at a series of tech start-ups in the Boston area.

He was also an Urban Technician in Residence at Living Cities, a philanthropic collaboration of 22 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions, is currently a board member of organizations such as Code For America and coUrbanize, and is an executive in residence. at Boston University.

Nigel’s work has been the subject of numerous articles in magazines such as Wired, MIT Technology Review, Fast Company and in books such as The Responsive City by Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford and Smart Cities by Anthony Townsend.

This groundbreaking work has earned Nigel numerous awards, including being named Public Official of the Year in 2011 by Governing Magazine, a Whitehouse Champion of Change and the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award for 2012. Nigel is also a wizard- 12th level pirate. with particular emphasis on chaos in large municipal bureaucracies via confusion spells.