Smart City Project

KC topics that don't fit anywhere else.
Riverite
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by Riverite »

Agreed! I think this could, if done well could produce a huge advantage for Kansas City. These sorts of things always seem sort of clumsy and hard to grasp at first, however over time can come to seem like no brainers. If we consider the purpose of a city is to maximize the benefit for its residents then we can see how it would be advantageous. For example if they see pedestrian traffic spike in certain areas where there is no retail or coffee shop around they could pitch that idea to an entrepreneur making their job that much easier, and the benefit of the citizens along that route to rise, or say they notice it peaks at night then maybe a bar. It can also make transportation run smoother. I guess what I see it as is we all like seeing growth and development, and have places in mind where it should go. I think it would seem a lot more plausible to developers or what have you if we could show them quantifiable data that could back our assertion up. I think the city could see massive development in the north loop if they showed data and projections to people instead of the people have to wade through a bunch of stuff themselves
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Here's another data set that has come out of KC's smart cities initiative. It shows levels of broadband available along each street on MO side of metro. It shows poverty levels as well but oddly shows higher income parks/commercial/shopping centers as high poverty, even Plaza and Loose Park. Still a good broadband map.

http://kcdigital.xaqt.com/#/KC/digitalInclusion

Article about it here...
http://www.govtech.com/civic/Kansas-Cit ... usion.html
As Kansas City, Mo., CIO Bob Bennett is fond of pointing out, his community has the largest smart city footprint in North America, complete with a collection of smart streetcars that collect data for public-facing websites — data that gets as specific as the location of open parking spots.

“We will be the smartest city on Earth within five years,” Bennett has said.

There’s no exact metric for gauging if Kansas City is, in fact, the smartest city on our continent at present, but it’s doubtful that many other U.S. cities would want to call Bennett out on the legitimacy of his claim. Kansas City’s smart city infrastructure is strong, strong and advancing rapidly. Now, as it continues to move forward, city officials have added a new data visualization map aimed at keeping track of digital inclusion efforts as well, so that all populations within the city will benefit from the technological growth of its infrastructure.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

A tale of 3 smart cities: NYC, Barcelona and....

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/a ... ree-wi-fi/
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

KC continues to get hype as a 'smart city' with most any global smart city article referencing KC as a leader...
http://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-anno ... with-kpmg/

It's mostly hype for now as it's still a nascent industry but hopefully KC's head start can capitalize on the attention with some tangible outcomes, more than it did with Google Fiber. KC has a shot at becoming a long term major industry player as it is with Animal Health industry, though the regional universities need to get on track as well.
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by AJoD »

earthling wrote:KC's head start can capitalize on the attention with some tangible outcomes, more than it did with Google Fiber. KC has a shot at becoming a long term major industry player
I would argue that this smart city head start is in fact a tangible outcome from Google Fiber; certainly one of the intentional directions dating back to 2011-2012.
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Yeah, I agree to your point that Google Fiber helped attract Cisco and others to kickstart KC's Smart City initiatives - but they aren't using GF service directly. I'm thinking of direct industry momentum potential KC has with the nascent 'smart city industry' as KC built up the animal health industry as a top tier global player. Google Fiber caused Startup Village and drew some companies but the overall tech/stem job growth last few years while good wasn't particularly something that stood out as a result of GF. If KC can become a major player with the smart city industry like animal health, the job growth may become more exponential.

Or to put it another way, of all the GF impact to KC, the local Smart City initiative may create most significant opportunity to maintain leadership in a new industry. KC has a headstart but may become a challenge to maintain top player status if the regional universities don't get on board and take it to next level (as they are involved with animal health industry). Google Fiber helped draw attention to this but not really a factor in taking to next level, especially now that gigabit and residential fiber is more broadly available.

Local smart city orgs should focus on developing programs with the regional universities (using downtown KC as a living lab) if they expect KC to develop top tier smart city research status.
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by AJoD »

earthling wrote:Or to put it another way, of all the GF impact to KC, the local Smart City initiative may create most significant opportunity to maintain leadership in a new industry. KC has a headstart but may become a challenge to maintain top player status if the regional universities don't get on board and take it to next level (as they are involved with animal health industry). Google Fiber helped draw attention to this but not really a factor in taking to next level, especially now that gigabit and residential fiber is more broadly available.
True that the Cisco project doesn't rely on Google's fiber specifically, but I mean something more intentional than just that the GF experiment opened the way for Cisco. We identified smart city pretty early on as one of several potential areas for new industry leadership as a result of the region's growing connectivity assets. There continue to be other opportunities, but agree with you that one has progressed in some pretty substantive ways.

To the university point, we've been working quite a bit with them on this. While there's always more room for growth, and some missed opportunities I think, UMKC and KU have both been pretty responsive and have smart city groups on campus. We've engaged both cities as partners in the MetroLab Network, both are involved in US Ignite and the software-defined Digital Town Square architecture we're working on, both involved in a $20M advanced wireless research testbed grant we're working on, and have been involved in some pretty other substantive ways too. UMKC is also working on a Center for Big Learning via NSF with Florida, Oregon and Carnegie Mellon. And the Law School is leading the creation of a Legal Technology Laboratory, which is an international consortium with some heavy hitters, also Kauffman backed.

None of which is to contradict your central point, the universities are critical to success here. But my guess is that all the above is pretty far under the radar. In some sense that's okay because you want to see some of these initiatives bear fruit before really promoting, but I wouldn't say the universities are just sitting on their hands. Shameless plug: we'll be giving some high level detail on a number of these initiatives at the local edition of Gigabit City Summit next Friday.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Great to hear that local universities are involved. Would hope they can develop research programs strong enough to maintain KC as a top tier player. Sounds like a great start. And yes, these seem to be under the radar as I've been tracking somewhat closely and had no idea of the programs you've mentioned. Might be something for Startland News to cover. Is the $20M wireless testbed grant in any way tied to Google Fiber's local tests with fixed wireless? Fixed wireless is another potential opportunity for KC to share leadership. Sprint should perhaps transition from mobile wireless to primarily fixed wireless strategy. Would make much better use of their broad spectrum. (Would rather see Sprint merge with a CableCo than with TMobile and target residential fixed wireless.)

Also good to hear that National Science Foundation and Mozilla are still closely involved with your initiatives. And congrats on your recent appointment to an FCC broadband advisory committee!
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by AJoD »

Thanks! The type of longstanding, grad-student churning-out research programs are a long road. I've long lamented the distance to Rolla. Oh well. Testbed not explicitly connected to Google's experiments in the 3.5, but fixed wireless is part of it. We've actually agreed to partner with Startland a little more actively, we never have the capacity to adequately get the word out. But some stuff--so you're 1 of 40-50 grant applicants--isn't really newsworthy until it is. I mean, there's a longer story there, for sure, but it's not worth making a hubbub about unless we can close.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Perhaps Rolla could open a downtown KC campus with a smart city graduate research lab!

With Columbus, Indy and Nashville nipping at KC's heels, they have the larger and/or more established universities to potentially leapfrog KC in the Smart City space. All 3 having state capitol helps too. KC might lose ground as a smart city leader if the regional universities aren't developing related programs to the degree of more established universities. Seems like nearly all of the 'hot' markets have a major research university, which KC lacks. The smart city opportunity (specifically KC's current global attention even if just hype) is a chance for regional universities to not just get on board with a new industry but as a strategic focus to target grants. KC's attention by the industry may otherwise slip as the others leapfrog. But maybe I'm off base and KC develops a strong enough 'living lab' ecosystem to stay in the game w/out significant university grant activity.
Last edited by earthling on Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

A few more tidbits about useful data coming from KC's SmartCity...

https://gcn.com/articles/2017/06/23/kan ... ation.aspx
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Becoming a smart city takes more than sensors and buzzwords..
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/citi ... g-sensors/

Would expect most that comes out of smart cities will be behind the scenes with cross-referenced data that cities can use to manage services better. But a good chunk will be directly useful to public too, like WiFi and kiosks. Big Brotherish monitoring should be the near term concern. Large public Wifi systems can track your every move even if you don't log into Wifi. Shopping centers/malls already doing this.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Smart City and Innovation conference heading to KC after 2 years in Austin. Nice score, an indication KC is recognized for having something tangible to show...
http://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/Smar ... ty-Mo.html
But Matthew Laudon, CEO of TechConnect, which spearheads private- and public-sector technology prospecting programs including the Smart Cities conference, said that despite the event’s freshman and sophomore editions happening in Austin, it was never designed to have a permanent home — but instead would rotate among progressive cities.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

What do Columbus, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Boston have in common, other than being smart technology leaders? A commitment from government leaders to embrace technologies like open data platforms and smart sensor networks, along with the willingness to foster innovation from the private sector. If cities want to make the journey to being smart, they should look to these leaders for examples of how to find success.
http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarge ... y-examples
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

pash
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by pash »

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Last edited by pash on Thu Aug 10, 2017 3:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
JBmidtown
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by JBmidtown »

pash wrote:Lovely, a chatbot for "open data" that requires a Facebook account to use.
Pfffft don't be so paranoid.
earthling
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

^Kinda turned me off too when seeing it's Facebook based.
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by earthling »

Here's an interesting KCMO startup. One challenge is that winter states tend to end up with easily torn up roads and more potholes, could be difficult to repair/maintain when having smarts embedded even if 'lasting 4X longer'.

Roads that Talk to You
Missouri startup Integrated Roadways has a big vision for the future of roads. Their goal is to create modular pavement that acts as a digital network to connect drivers, support driverless technology, and generate recurring revenue from private party app development. The startup has taken in an undisclosed amount of funding to develop their patented Smart Pavement platform which provides a better, faster (95% less costly to install), less expensive (80% less total cost), and more durable (lasts 4X longer) way to create roads and highways.

The system could also communicate with emergency services during an accident, providing added safety and facilitating quicker emergency response times. Currently, they’re working with the State of Missouri on a pilot to determine its suitability to reconstruct I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis, a $4 billion project. They see themselves as a technology integrator and said they’ve had interest from companies like Cisco, Sprint, Amazon, Google, and others who all want to participate. It’s probably about time to partner up then.
Image

http://www.nanalyze.com/2017/07/11-smar ... er-cities/

http://www.startlandnews.com/2017/03/in ... le-expert/
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Re: Smart City Project

Post by DaveKCMO »

Smart City update: Living Lab set to launch, TV show may highlight KC innovation
http://www.startlandnews.com/2017/07/sm ... nnovation/
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