Podcast Summary:

The Digital Executive – Ep 1097 “Reimagining Smart Cities: How Drew Messer Is Powering AI-Driven Governance”
Date: August 10, 2025
Host: Brian (Coruzant Technologies)
Guest: Drew Messer (CEO & Co-founder, Urban SDK)

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the transformation of local government operations through AI-powered data platforms and reimagines the way cities manage infrastructure, safety, and public services. Drew Messer, CEO and co-founder of Urban SDK, shares the company's origin story, their mission to modernize governance with geospatial AI, and real-world impacts on municipal decision-making. The discussion highlights the move from outdated, manual processes toward integrated, data-driven smart city solutions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin of Urban SDK and the Smart Cities Imperative

[01:15]

• Drew describes his early immersion in politics and government, stemming from a family background and personal experience in campaigns and legislative consulting.
• The inspiration for Urban SDK arose from the 2016 USDOT Smart Cities Challenge, which pushed cities to modernize services using technology—particularly in transportation and mobility.
• Drew and his co-founder FOIA-requested all 76 city applications from the Challenge, revealing a widespread inability among governments to manage or act on new data sources.
• The Evidence Based Policy Act of 2016, requiring federal agencies to use machine-readable data in policymaking, reinforced their conviction to build a data management platform tailored to state and local governments.
• Quote:
  “Most of what local state governments were acknowledging were these new data sources were coming online ... but they didn’t have the skill set or the tools to be able to collect that information, clean it, and then ultimately use it in an effective way.”
  — Drew Messer [02:38]
• Since launching in 2018, Urban SDK has expanded to 34 states and serves over 250 government customers.

2. Modernizing Road Management: From Rubber Tubes to Real-Time Insight

[05:18]

• Traditionally, road activity was measured by physical rubber tubes, costing up to $15,000 per study and yielding limited PDF reports on a small fraction of the road network.
• Urban SDK’s platform enables comprehensive, year-round, jurisdiction-wide data collection for a fraction of the cost (about 10 cents on the dollar), which democratizes access to critical infrastructure data:
  • Example: A city reducing annual traffic study costs from $400,000 to $40,000 while expanding coverage from 15% of roads to 100%.
  • Impact: More resources can be devoted to actually fixing roads rather than just studying them.
• Enhanced access to data shifts police deployment, identifying new hotspots outside of “tribal knowledge” and improving public safety.
• Quotes:
  “They’re now able to get their hands wrapped around every single road within their jurisdiction.”
  — Drew Messer [06:53]
  “When we actually started delivering data and information from the roads to these police officers, they started going to areas that they had traditionally not monitored.”
  — Drew Messer [08:12]

3. Enabling Collaboration Across Government Agencies

[09:39]

• Multiple entities—city councils, DOTs, public works, police, and transit agencies—historically managed road data in silos, limiting effectiveness.
• Urban SDK’s platform provides a “single pane of glass” for a unified, cross-agency view, fostering more coordinated policy, budgeting, and operational decisions.
• This disrupts data silos and aligns diverse stakeholders around comprehensive, actionable intelligence.
• Quote:
  “They weren’t making decisions that had a cohesive, comprehensive kind of single pane of glass of information to make those decisions more effectively in a whole-of-government type of perspective.”
  — Drew Messer [10:50]

4. Smart City Trends & The Data-Driven Future

[12:28]

• Infrastructure 2.0 is emerging: embedding sensors and data collection capacity in new physical infrastructure.
• This “measurement” of the physical world enables software-driven optimization of city services and policy.
• The smart city vision hinges on data ubiquity and evidence-based governance, reducing reliance on individual bias or legacy practices.
• Quote:
  “At the highest level, the biggest trend obviously is data is becoming ubiquitous. We have access to this data now. Let’s integrate that into our governing layer and rebuild that municipal and state code…”
  — Drew Messer [13:27]
• Data helps leaders make impartial, better-informed choices on infrastructure investment and public safety.

5. Reflections on Growth, Mission, and Gratitude

[15:29]

• Drew attributes much of Urban SDK’s success to a combination of market timing, vision, hard work—and faith.
• Quote:
  “So much of our success in my mind has been dependent on the blessing of God on our business... there’s been so many times in this business I thought, man, are we going to make it through? And we have. And I think that it's because of his faithfulness and blessing [the] business.”
  — Drew Messer [15:40]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Data and Decision-Making:
  “You can... take that personal bias out and really drive critical public decisions off of relevant, reliable information.”
  — Drew Messer [13:55]

• Impactful Example:
  “Instead of spending all those dollars on data collection, spend a fraction... and then reallocate those taxpayer dollars to actually solving those safety issues.”
  — Drew Messer [07:53]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:15] – Origin story: Inspiration and legislative context for Urban SDK
• [05:18] – Transformation of road management with AI and real-time data
• [09:39] – Breaking down data silos and building integrated platforms for governments
• [12:28] – Smart city trends and the impact of ubiquitous data
• [15:29] – Personal reflections on success, faith, and the future

Summary Takeaway

This insightful conversation with Drew Messer offers a look into how AI-powered data platforms are reshaping local governance, making cities smarter, safer, and more responsive. Urban SDK exemplifies a new era in public sector technology—a move from reactive, piecemeal decision-making to proactive, integrated management grounded in actionable data. For city leaders and technologists alike, the message is clear: Data is now the backbone of effective, equitable governance.