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It really is incredible to see the progress that has been made since governments started opening up data and allowing developers, entrepreneurs and the like to use it for the public good (or simply to make a buck). The piece below about a recent...
Article - 06/29/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Shelter, Upward Mobility
"For us, compassion has always driven what we have done," says M. Bernardine Dias, an associate research professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh.That compassion led Dias and her team of students,...
Article - 06/28/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Upward Mobility, Wellness
In announcing a $23.8 million Series B round from an impressive list of backers earlier this month – LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Melinda Gates among them -- the not-for-profit tech startup Crisis Text Line...
Article - 06/28/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Wellness
By Avinash S. Patwardhan and Ken Thompson, CH2MThe Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a technology trend well underway in machine-to-machine communication that is poised to radically change the business environment. It is estimated, by 2020,...
Article - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Water and wastewater, Analytics, Security and privacy
The Internet of Things is widely seen as bringing new services, efficiencies and opportunities that will significantly change how commercial and industrial operations conduct their business—and help cities become smarter and more connected as they...
Article - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Computing resources, Connectivity, Data management
By Kathryn Willson, Director, Microsoft CityNextOften we hear about the “public trust.” While its common-law roots refer to the air, rivers, and lands commons to be shared by all citizens, the term today also connotes an attribute of the...
Article - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Analytics, Data management, Security and privacy
By Scott Pomeroy, Downtown DC Business Improvement District; John Teeter, Maalka; and Zach Wilson, D.C. Department of General ServicesThe District of Columbia has multiple IoT-based projects underway. The most public of these projects are...
Article - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Connectivity, Data management, Interoperability
By Mike Smith and Jennifer Robinson, SASIn a 2004 bid to make the Republic of Singapore the first “smart” nation, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong began deploying numerous sensors across the island to track everything from cleanliness to traffic....
Article - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Analytics, Data management
The Obama Administration announced that it will hold an event in conjunction with the second-annual Smart Cities Week, September 27-29 in Washington, D.C.In a statement, the White House said it would help “bring together leading thinkers and...
Article - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Winters in North America can be challenging for some cities. The cold weather drives-up energy consumption costs and snow accumulations can bring road networks to a halt. The 53,510 citizens of Blainville, a city located in the greater...
Article - 06/23/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Analytics, Data management
There’s no doubt that the arrival of the internet has made business difficult for traditional retailers. But a MasterCard study found something surprising when it looked at three retail districts in Britain: Business is as a good as it’s ever been....
Article - 06/22/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Economic development, Payments
Cities have many reasons to get smart. Climate mandates. Economic development. Operational efficiency. New research suggests that you can make gains on these and other goals by working towards smart buildings. First, by updating the city’s own...
Article - 06/22/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Analytics, Instrumentation and control
The markets for electric vehicles and charging networks are growing. Council Lead Partner Daimler is expected to spend almost $8 billion over the next two years to ensure that all of its models have an electric powertrain option and many car makers...
Article - 06/22/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Transportation
Youth unemployment is at crisis levels around the world at the same time the digital skills gap is widening. That's why a pilot program underway in the UK that addresses both those challenges should be worth watching.Hema Marshall, who is Head of...
Article - 06/21/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Upward Mobility
South Africa has a tire problem – by some estimates 250,000 tons of waste tires that are a fire hazard, pollutant and breeding ground for disease-spreading vermin and mosquitoes. So along came the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of...
Article - 06/21/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Upward Mobility
A few years ago, only big tech companies had positions like Chief Data Officer or Chief Innovation Officer. Now cities are finding value in the job — as they should.But the job requirements may not be exactly what you expect. Consider Ali Farahani,...
Article - 06/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Analytics, Data management, Policy and leadership
Students are already immersed in digital technology. They have smart phones. They use computers and play video games. So adapting a video game as a teaching medium makes sense for a number of reasons. Microsoft's Education Edition of the popular...
Article - 06/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Health and human services
You’re likely under increasing pressure to meet increasingly difficult climate goals. But success doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive. In fact, as places like California and Charlotte demonstrate, you can actually save millions of dollars....
Article - 06/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy
If you live where clean water is plentiful, it may be hard to imagine life for the roughly 1.2 billion people in the world with severe water shortages. And the UN says an additional 500 million people will face similar shortages within a few short...
Article - 06/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Analytics
Mark Watts, Executive Director of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, raises an interesting point in a recent post on The Huffington Post blog. He says most citizens probably don't expect their mayors to be involved in policy-making about the...
Article - 06/16/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Food and Water
Washington, D.C. – June 15, 2016 – Jason Nelson, a seasoned marketing executive with a passion for helping cities and businesses use technology to prosper, has joined the Smart Cities Council as Executive Director for Partner Engagement. He...
Article - 06/15/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
We often encourage cities to take a collaborative approach to their smart city projects and upgrades. The abbreviated news release below details Council Lead Partner Cisco's partnership with the UK's largest science park operator, Manchester Science...
Article - 06/15/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development
Cities have several alternatives for connecting to their smart devices citywide. They can ask their IT department to "hardwire" the connections one at a time. Or they can hire an integrator/consultant to do all that messy work. Or they can turn to a...
Article - 06/15/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Connectivity, Instrumentation and control, Interoperability
Smart buildings have great benefits. So do smart grids. But the greatest benefits come when they start talking to each other.For instance, the grid can ask a building to reduce its power use for a few minutes during peak periods (and pay for the...
Article - 06/15/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Interoperability
Urban squares, streets lined with green space and unused commercial or industrial property converted into parks are all great ideas for cities that want to give their citizens a more livable, relaxing outdoor environment. But for some cities, it's...
Article - 06/15/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment
Upward mobility is one of the key themes in our Compassionate Cities initiative, with an emphasis on how technology can help solve income inequality and make prosperity within everyone's reach. In the U.S. we call it the American Dream – work hard,...
Article - 06/13/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Upward Mobility
By Bill Mitchel, Senior Director, Microsoft Worldwide Public SectorThe San Francisco Bay Area has no shortage of transportation options for residents and tourists alike. You can hop a cable car up and down the city’s hills, take a Muni light rail...
Article - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Transportation
Traffic is a major drain on your economy. The typical London commuter wastes the equivalent of nearly three work weeks each year stuck in traffic. Workers in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco don’t fare much better; they waste the...
Article - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Transportation
By Erica Zamensky, Black & Veatch, Smart Integrated InfrastructureYear by year, the world’s population continues to evolve into metro sapiens. With growing urbanization, our dominant habitat is a high-density jungle with rivers of people, cars,...
Article - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Transportation
The way we drive and think about cars is changing. Several cars already have some forms of connected technologies and management systems. And car manufacturers are producing cars with complex new connectivity-dependent features like driver assist...
Article - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Public safety and security, Transportation
When you ask someone to think about the ways in which harnessing data might enhance their lives, chances are that "in my vehicle" won’t be the answer that first comes to mind. We tend to isolate our visions for a connected future to our offices,...
Article - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Transportation, Connectivity
If your city is fortunate enough to have never experienced a catastrophic flood, don't think it can't happen. Just ask the residents of Northwood, a subdivision in Gulfport, Mississippi. Flooding had happened before, but residents said they had...
Article - 06/08/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Economic development, Water and wastewater
Slowly but surely, the walls are coming down between silos to allow cross-cutting solutions. Slowly but surely, companies are moving those solutions into the cloud, where they can grow as big and as fast as needed. You'll see both of these trends...
Article - 06/08/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Transportation, Instrumentation and control, Interoperability
In case you haven't noticed, the smart cities sector is awash in partnering initiatives. Companies are working overtime to pre-integrate their solutions, so cities don't have to take on that onerous challenge. Case in point: The announcement below...
Article - 06/08/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Analytics, Connectivity, Interoperability
The northern coastal city of Tianjin, a metropolis of more than 15 million residents, is already recognized as an advanced industrial and financial hub — and China's ambitious plans to become a global leader in smart technologies are well-...
Article - 06/08/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Public safety and security, Transportation, Connectivity
Here's an intriguing concept out of Scotland – and one that other communities or neighborhood groups could easily adopt. The Meal Makers program uses a web-based platform to encourage people to prepare an extra meal for a senior in their community...
Article - 06/07/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Food and Water
Two goals for any smart city transformation are livability and sustainability. And transportation systems offer a great place to start: they use a lot of energy and they typically contribute heavily to air pollution in bustling urban areas. The news...
Article - 06/03/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Transportation
Scroll down for quick takes from Council partners...Electronic components maker selects Allied Telesis video surveillance systemTDK Thailand Company, a major electronic components manufacturer, has chosen a video surveillance solution from Council...
Article - 06/03/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy, Telecommunications, Transportation, Connectivity
One of the essentials to having a vibrant city is having a vibrant job market. Today, that requires a workforce that truly embraces technology, not just uses it. And cities not only rely on that coveted workforce, they play a role in developing it....
Article - 06/03/2016
Active Region(s): Main, Australia - New Zealand, North America
Category: Economic development, Health and human services
A recent CH2M newsletter gave a biofuel research facility the company is working on in Masdar City "cool project" status. We have to agree. As you'll read below, this first-of-its-kind facility uses desert lands irrigated by seawater to...
Article - 06/02/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Food and Water
It's a smart concept, connecting seniors with spare rooms with seniors who like to travel. But the University of Dublin administrator who came up with The Freebird Club – a new web-based social travel and home-stay club for the 50-plus crowd – says...
Article - 06/01/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
Category: Wellness
There are a lot of bright minds focused on helping empower the 32 million female adolescents in the world that UNESCO estimates are not enrolled in school – either because they're too poor to afford the fees, are needed to work or the risk of danger...
Article - 06/01/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities
The health of a community is largely determined by its job base. Don’t believe that? Just ask cities that used to be manufacturing powerhouses. Today, high-tech jobs rule.The usual approach to attract those high-tech, high-paying jobs is to invest...
Article - 06/01/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Economic development
We've been conditioned to think when a call goes to a 911 emergency call center it's going to get through — right away — and help will be coming soon. We expect it. We count on it. But help isn't always there. Think of it this way: 911 centers get...
Article - 06/01/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Public safety and security, Telecommunications, Interoperability
CHP, also referred to as cogeneration, has been a common source of power in Europe for a number of years. It now provides about 16% of Germany's power and the country plans to increase its use to 25% within five years. The process involves capturing...
Article - 06/01/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Energy
In many parts of Nepal, the healthcare system is rudimentary. Watch in this video from Council Associate Partner Siemens how Professor Ram Shrestha of Dhulikhel Hospital is tackling that challenge with a medical network based on the hub-and-spoke...
Resources - 06/30/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Wellness
When companies and jurisdictions are moving M2M/IoT communications to cellular technologies, security considerations are often left behind. In this white paper from Council Associate Partner Telit, city leaders and others can learn how to avoid some...
Resources - 06/28/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Data management
When a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami severely damaged communities in Japan's Tohoku region in 2011, the area required a massive amount of reconstruction. And that involved moving residential areas to higher ground. The reconstruction and...
Resources - 06/27/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Built environment, Computing resources
During winter most residents of Little Egg Harbor, a coastal town in New Jersey, leave until the weather warms up. But in their absence, water pipes in their homes can freeze and break or faucets may begin to leak. Armed with technology from Council...
Resources - 06/27/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Water and wastewater
You’ve done enough research to know that data management is an important first step in dealing with big data or starting any analytics project. But you’re not too proud to admit that you’re still confused about the differences between master data...
Resources - 06/27/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Analytics, Data management
The IoT promises to create a highly efficient world that demands constant analysis of the state of events based on the sensor and machine communications happening all around us. Connected, communicating devices – what we call the “Internet of Things...
Resources - 06/27/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Analytics, Data management
By 2030, the demand for fresh water is projected to outpace supply by almost 40%. With a goal of moving companies to net-zero water usage, Ecolab and Council Lead Partner Microsoft are taking on the world’s water challenges. Watch this short video...
Resources - 06/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Food and Water
Working with community organizations, the city of Phoenix Family Services Centers provides respite for the homeless during the hot summer months. Learn more about the program in this video.
Resources - 06/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Wellness
A “No Wrong Door” approach for social services simplifies and expedites how a case worker engages with a client who is seeking assistance. As the video below from Council Lead Partner Microsoft explains, the integrated solution is designed to help...
Resources - 06/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Compassionate Cities
Leaders are under increasing pressure to rein in spending, while delivering better outcomes and living standards in their communities. In the companion white papers linked here, IBM experts suggest technology can play a significant role in...
Resources - 06/14/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Information Center
IBM Health Corps is a global pro bono program focused on tackling health disparities. It partners with health organizations across the world, contributing the time and expertise of teams of IBMers for three weeks on site. IBM Health Corps uses IBM...
Resources - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Wellness
Watch this short video to hear how the World Bank uses impact evaluations to shed light on how effective its programs are and to help drive good, cost-effective decisions about future programs to reduce extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.
Resources - 06/10/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Compassionate Cities
Bill Gates says that if he could pick just one thing to lower the price of to reduce poverty, he would pick energy. The Microsoft co-founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation argues in this video that the world needs to invest...
Resources - 06/07/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Compassionate Cities
If donors experience a lengthy or cumbersome process trying to donate to a charity, will they think twice about donating to that organization again? The SickKids Foundation of Canada worked with Council Lead Partner Cisco to equip its contact centre...
Resources - 06/06/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Compassionate Cities, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Wellness