Current Today is bcdW Magazine's daily newsletter — one story, one city, read through the eyes of the world.

We launch today in test flight. Each edition takes a single real story from one of our cities and asks: what does this mean for someone living somewhere else entirely? What ideas travel? What collaborations become possible?
Let’s get into it →

Individuals don't decide to go to war. Nobody asked Ben Greenberg.

Greenberg is a California native who moved to Israel from New York in 2018. The Times of Israel When Iranian missiles began flying toward Tel Aviv on February 28, his first question wasn't political — it was practical: "Can I take a shower right now?"

He built an app using real-time alert data from Israel's Home Front Command. It weighs four inputs: how long since the last alert, the average gap between alerts over a six-hour window, whether the frequency is trending up or down, and the total alert count over the past 24 hours. Those are weighted into a single score. The Times of Israel Users enter how long their shower takes and how much buffer time they need to dry off and reach shelter.

He insists it's "not a joke app." He describes it as a way to "restore some level of control and predictability… in a time when that feels most vulnerable and most taken away from us." The Times of Israel

Within days, the app was drawing 5,000 visitors a day.

One user checked Wednesday afternoon, saw a 13% chance of an alert, and took a full 20-minute hot shower. The next siren came only after she was dressed.

Greenberg isn't alone.

Hooked was originally built for speed-dating at events. It has now become a bomb-shelter matchmaker. Singles post a QR code at the shelter entrance, and anyone who scans it can see who else inside shares their relationship status. The Times of Israel Someone is looking for love in the same room they ran into to survive.

Purple Vest lets elderly residents and people with disabilities register in advance. When an alert sounds, volunteers use the app to locate them and help them reach shelter or deliver urgent supplies. The Times of Israel It's an app for the people who can't run.

Bomb Shelter Locator maps roughly 20,000 official shelter sites across Israel, with offline city maps, walking routes, and estimated arrival times. The Times of Israel

None of these existed two weeks ago. All of them work.

This story matters not because it's about Tel Aviv. It matters because it's about every city.

Nations start wars. Individuals don't. But once a war begins, the same thing happens on every city street — someone discovers a new problem and starts solving it. Whether it's shower timing, shelter accessibility, or loneliness inside a bunker.

This is not uniquely Israeli. It happened in Kyiv. In Baghdad. In Aleppo. In Sarajevo. When war arrives, new problems appear — and the person standing next to that problem starts building the answer.

Nations start wars. Cities survive. Individuals build.

(Sources: Times of Israel, JTA, Arab News — March 2026)

Tomorrow: Built Under Fire — Part 2: Amman. A mechanic who calls war boring. Fabric shops seeing 30% sales growth. And a city that answers missiles with the most radical act of all — not changing a thing.

Seoul → South Korea remains technically at war. Seoul residents know their evacuation routes and have alert apps installed. But that infrastructure has never become a consumer product. Tel Aviv's shower app turned military data into a consumer service — a category that doesn't yet exist in Seoul. If tensions on the peninsula escalate again, the gap between a city that built these tools in advance and one that didn't will be measured in lives.

New York → After 9/11, New York became the symbol of civic crisis response. But the tools from that era were mostly government-built. What's happening in Tel Aviv is structurally different — citizens build first, government follows. An app like Purple Vest is a direct model for New York's most disaster-vulnerable populations: the elderly, people with disabilities, immigrants facing language barriers.

San Francisco → SF builds the world's apps. But it never tests them where lives are at stake. Tel Aviv's wartime apps are an extreme UX laboratory. One design principle is being proven here in real time: a product that must work within 90 seconds of a missile alert will outperform anything designed in comfort.

Medellín → Medellín already knows this story. The city rebuilt itself through decades of conflict, and the startups, brands, and community infrastructure that emerged from that era defined Colombia's innovation identity. Crisis doesn't kill entrepreneurship — it selects for the most resilient version of it. What Medellín proved over 20 years, Tel Aviv is demonstrating in two weeks.

Dubai → Dubai is also under Iranian fire right now. But Dubai's response is government-infrastructure-first. Tel Aviv's response is citizen-first. Two models are being tested simultaneously. Which one produces deeper civic loyalty and longer-lasting innovation is a question that will only be answered after this war ends.

Amman → Tomorrow's story. Same war. Entirely different response. If Tel Aviv turns crisis into product, Amman turns crisis into normalcy. Both cities are surviving. The method is different.

Austin → Texas faces its own recurring crises — the 2021 grid collapse, annual hurricane seasons. Civic tech for disaster contexts is a category Austin developers understand. Tel Aviv's wartime apps are a directly deployable reference. The difference: Tel Aviv builds these because it has to. Austin can build them before it has to.

Your Next Opportunity Is Already Happening — Just Not Where You're Looking

The deal, the partner, the market, the project — it's out there. bcdW connects people who are ready to move with the places, people, and ideas that are ready to receive them. Business opportunities, revenue, partnerships, projects worth joining. Read the magazine that finds the connection before you do.

→ Read bcdW Magazine

Where Will the Olds Live When Everything Changes? We're All Getting There. Today's Old Is Tomorrow's Ours.

We are getting older. All of us. Faster than we planned, longer than we expected, in cities that were never designed for this. Climate is changing everything — heat, water, food, safety. And at the same time, the oldest generation in human history is growing larger, living longer, and asking a question no city has fully answered yet: where do we belong in all of this? Sim Eternal is the project building that story — not as a warning, not as a policy paper, but as a living narrative about the future city told by the people who will live in it the longest. The olds are not the problem. They are the point. And this city is theirs.

→ Visit Sim Eternal City Project

Current runs on one city, one story, every day. But the map is still being drawn.

We are looking for contributors who live and work inside the cities they write about — one story from your city, told the way only a local can tell it. We are also looking for readers who want to add their voice to other cities' stories — benchmarking, similar cases, collaboration ideas, a connection worth making. If a story from Medellín reminds you of something happening in your city, tell us. That response is the whole point.

Right now we are building across the Americas and Asia. But the dream is longer than that — from America to Afro-Eurasia, local to local, city to city, one real connection at a time.

More stories. More cities. More continents.

If you have one, send it.

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