Mr. Alby 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. Bocanegra 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. Bocanegra also lends his expertise as an Advisory Board Member on Digital Twins to the World Economic Forum. Additionally, Bocanegra has been named “Futurist in Residence” by the Smart Cities Council, where he will lead the curation of topics for a monthly podcast and blog along with the engagement of a global community of practice. Bocanegra was recently appointed as a board member of Aventura Ventures, an impact Venture Capital fund in Southern California.

Prior to founding TUF Inc, he was Vice President of Urban Technology and Global City Partnerships at Mastercard. In his role, Bocanegra 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 to a global ecosystem comprising over 335 cities as well as over 50 industry, academic, and civil society partners across 6 continents. He also led the creation of the 24-Hour Cities Network, made up of over 100 government officials, academics and advocates focused on helping cities build programming and governance models to activate their night-time economy. 

Bocanegra spent three years with the Mayor’s Office in the City of New York, with most 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. He also oversaw the delivery of multiple innovative programs, including the expansion of community-driven initiatives with academia and industry partners and the roll out of universal broadband.

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, Bocanegra 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 as well as serving on the City of LA Mayor’s Veteran employment committee.