Building a Smarter Planet. A Smarter Planet Blog.

I’m not going to attempt the impossible and succinctly synthesize the entirety of day 1 of the NYC Smarter Cities Summit into one blog post. Instead, keep an eye out over the next few weeks for a series of blog posts delving deeper into the main themes and topics of the Smarter Cities summit. In the meantime, let me at least share the list of presenters and panelists from the first day (in order of appearance) since it isn’t listed anywhere else online:

• Sam Palmisano, IBM CEO
• Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, New York City (announcing his Connected City Initiative)
• Ivan Seidenberg, CEO, Verizon
• Melody Barnes, director, White House Domestic Policy Council
• Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO, Partnership for New York City
• Tom Brokaw (moderator)
• James Douglas, Governor, Vermont and Chair, National Governors Association
• Sonny Perdue, Governor, Georgia
• Richard Ravitz, Lt. Governor, New York
• Elizabeth Roberts, Lt. Governor, Rhode Island
• Dr. Denis Cortese, President and CEO, Mayo Clinic
• Garrick Utley, State University of New York

There’s simply too much valuable content from each presenter to synthesize into a single post. I recommend going through the many good insights shared via Twitter during the event. As video becomes available, we’ll feature it here on the blog.

I did, however, want to point out three big recurring themes I noticed from the day:

1. The use of data and analytics to make improvements in a city. These range from driving down crime in New York, to transforming public education in Mobile, Alabama to or managing water resources in Galway, Ireland. On that point, IBM announced a new analytics center based in New York dedicated to looking at the issues facing cities around the world.
2. The need for new kinds of public-private partnerships. Every speaker and panelist – from Melody Barnes to Tom Brokaw – touched on how creative public-private partnerships were the key to solving these complex metropolitan issues. But innovation will be required to form these new kinds of partnerships. It’s a tricky balance, and one we’ll need to discuss more in the future on this blog.
3. The need for “systems thinking” to solve big macro issues. Dr. Cortese captured it best when he discussed how addressing the challenges nations and cities face with health care requires first a holistic systems thought. Health care, like public safety, transportation or education, requires long-term thinking to understand the broader issues and all the highly complex interdependencies with other systems. Basically, Dr. Cortese said, the health system could use systems engineers.

Much more to come on Day 2. Look out in the morning for a quick preview of the Breakout sessions and other discussions planned tomorrow.

Back in June, we at IBM hosted our first large Smarter Cities summit, convening leaders across Europe from the private and public sectors in Berlin to discuss the most pressing issues facing our cities. We heard from mayors, governors and CEOs about how they were charting a smarter future for their cities.

Tomorrow, in collaboration with the Partnership for New York City and the City University of New York, we bring the Smarter Cities Summit to New York City. It’s hard to think of a more appropriate place to explore the opportunities and issues facing the rapid urbanization of society than New York. Consider the following:

• Largest mass transit system in the world
• $60 billion budget
• 330,000 city employees
• 1.19 million students, 90,000 teachers, 1,500 schools
• 40,000 police officers; 14,000 firefighters
• 14 million 911 calls each year
• Largest airline system in the United States
• Second largest city economy in the world (after Tokyo)

Few places are better at seeing the stark challenges and dramatic opportunities for smarter urbanization than in New York City. But this session isn’t really about making New York City smarter. It’s about every city smarter. With that in mind, we are convening mayors, governors, public officials, CEOs, academics and policy makers from across North and South America for working sessions focused on progress in our cities. From the ibm.com description:

Hosted by IBM Chairman and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, our SmarterCities NYC forum will continue the conversation started in Berlin in June to explore new approaches to regional partnership, identify roadblocks, evaluate frameworks for investment and review the tools that are helping our cities meet 21^st century realities. …

As leaders, we all have a vital stake in ensuring that our cities become more resilient, more sustainable and more secure. Indeed, the health of our planet and of society depends on it. Let’s start shaping that future.

Sadly, there aren’t seats to accommodate the world to join us in person. But, thanks to Twitter and this blog, you can join us on this progression. Once the Summit begins around 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time, we’ll begin featuring the live #smartercity Twitter stream coming out of the event. As you follow that through the day and into Friday, our hope is you’ll get an idea of some of the ideas, topics and issues being raised in the sessions. Be sure to share your ideas too -the #smartercity feed will be broadcast inside the event for participants to follow along as well.

And keep coming to this blog for a great deal of in-depth commentary and insights synthesizing the ideas from the event itself from many of our smartest urban thinkers.

Finally, the heart of the smarter cities concept is the thinking that a city is really a complex system made up of many other complex, highly interconnected systems. The traffic systems impact energy systems, which impact environmental systems, which impact public health systems and so forth. But can’t lose sight that cities are comprised of individual people. We are the blood that flows through the veins of those systems, with our own perspectives and personal relationships to each facet of a city. Chris Luongo, a colleague at IBM, created the following artistic vignette to illustrate the unique ways these systems come together in the context of a city like New York to form a personal identity. There’s no narration. Just watch, enjoy and think about how the city comes together for you. Share your thoughts as part of the #smartercity conversation.