Tyler Svitak has built his career improving societal problems across Colorado at the intersection of technology, innovation, and partnership. As Executive Director of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance, he is an ecosystem-building entrepreneur that established a new model for public-private partnership. The result of these partnerships are real projects demonstrating how technology can benefit society, which he’s done around 100 times throughout his career working in government and non-profit organizations, earning him honors like the Denver Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Award at the age of 33.

Tyler became the Executive Director of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance in 2019, which is the first and largest statewide coalition of public, private, academic and research organizations committed to advancing smart cities initiatives. The Alliance develops project partnerships that leverage innovative technologies, like artificial intelligence, to improve challenges facing the state’s infrastructure. By partnering local governments with technology companies or research institutions around a specific problem, the Alliance has created a statewide laboratory for exploration of community solutions.

Two project highlights include: 1) developing one of the nation’s largest autonomous, electric transit services, called the Mines Rover, in partnership with the Colorado School of Mines and EasyMile, that earned the Metro Vision Award from the Denver Regional Council of Governments; 2) building of the Smart Futures Lab, a multi-million dollar 5G laboratory in downtown Denver to support testing and development of new infrastructure solutions with CU Denver.

Prior to joining the Alliance, Tyler started and led the connected and automated technology program at the Colorado Department of Transportation, where he managed a portfolio of $100+ million in connected and autonomous technology projects, served as the State of Colorado’s first-ever subject matter expert for CAVs, secured a $20 million BUILD grant from the US Department of Transportation to build the nation’s largest Vehicle-to-Infrastructure infrastructure network, and oversaw the implementation of a $72 million V2X contract with Panasonic.

Tyler began his career aiming to reduce pollution from the transportation sector in 2011 when the first EVs hit Colorado streets and the first statewide EV plan was undertaken (Fostering Electric Vehicle Expansion in the Rockies). He has led infrastructure planning, policy, and program initiatives to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicles in several roles since then. He developed a transportation electrification plan for the City and County of Denver’s finalist application to the US Department of Transportation’s Smart Cities Challenge, which included $24 million in public-private partnerships and strategy to double the growth rate of electric vehicles in the City. While he was at the City and County of Denver, he established and supported the goal of 200 EVs in the city fleet by 2020, and he secured a multi-million grant from the US Department of Energy to electrify transportation network companies in partnership with cities and private sector companies across the country.

Tyler also led the US Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Coalitions while at the American Lung Association, where he worked with hundreds of stakeholders (cities, vehicle fleets, utilities, private companies) to reduce petroleum consumption in the transportation sector through policy advocacy, fleet consulting, educational events and test drives, research and programming.