Even if you attended or viewed some of the videos from our New York City Smarter Cities event in October, you’ll find that last week’s first-ever Smarter Cities Virtual Forum affords a deeper dive into some of the key issues and smarter solutions that cities from Richmond, Virginia (public safety) to Las Vegas, Nevada (transportation) are undertaking today. One of the nice features of hosting the event virtually is the ability to deliver the presentations to you, in their entirety, on demand.
IBM’s new General Manager for North America, Bridget van Kralingen opened the forum with an update on our Smarter Cities initiatives and on what we’re seeing come out of these important conversations, as more people understand and embrace its vision.
- Cities are taking their first steps, piloting projects to improve efficiency and lower costs: The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC WASA) is working with IBM to analyze and revitalize its aging water and sewer system.
- Relationships are deepening: IBM completed an automatic metering project with Houston-based Centerpoint Energy, and now the utility is engaging with us for a Smart Grid project.
- Understanding and awareness are growing: Fordham University in New York has developed a new business analytics curriculum, preparing students with the needed skills to address key challenges – from reforming healthcare, to making buildings more energy efficient, to improving delivery of public services.
- Cross-industry connections are being made: Sempra Energy, based in San Diego, is partnering with grocery retailer Kroger developing charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.
Later, in her keynote, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue noted that as cities recover from the global recession of last year, “there will be a new normal for people, business and government at all levels.”
Governor Perdue discussed how North Carolina is doing business differently across the board to ensure its cities run smarter, leaner and poised to compete globally. She shared some of the targeted initiatives she’s been undertaking to address each of her top four priorities for the state – job creation, education, smarter government and public safety – and how she’s positioning North Carolina to be a world leader in green energy and green technology.
Speaking of green, the general session concludes with an insightful presentation and Q&A with Joseph Rigby, Chairman of Pepco Holdings, Inc., one of the largest energy delivery companies in the mid-Atlantic. His company, which was awarded $168 million in federal stimulus funding for smart grid projects over the next several years, has begun implementing smart meters in Delaware with plans to deploy them in Washington, DC, and Maryland, later this year.
Now that we’ve hopefully whet your appetite, I invite you to replay the general session and each of the six subsequent breakout sessions – which feature additional experts and some great Q&A – on energy, transportation, government, education, public safety and healthcare.
Leslie J. Monreal-Feil is an IBMer based in South Florida.
“The point of cities is multiplicity of choice,” said Jane Jacobs, the champion of cities who penned the breakthrough 1961 critique of urban renewal, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. We think it’s a good idea to give a multiplicity of people who are interested in the future of cities opportunities to learn about it and do something about it. That’s why we’re conducting a virtual Smarter Cities event on Feb. 23 (10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Eastern U.S. Time) as we mentioned here on this blog a few days ago.
This Smarter Cities phenomenon is really taking off. We’ve held major terrestrial events in Berlin and New York, and plan another in Shanghai this summer. We’ve also staged dozens of mini-events in cities throughout the world. So going online is an obvious next step. Anybody who wants to participate is welcome. Register on ibm.com.
The event will start off with a handful of speeches delivered by government and business leaders who are up to their elbows in making cities work better. They include Bev Perdue, governor of North Carolina, and Joseph Rigby, chairman of utility giant Pepco Holdings. Our own Bridget van Kralingen, IBM general manager, North America, will launch the event with an update on our Smarter Planet initiative. (One tidbit: A little more than a year after launching the initiative, we have 1200 partnerships with clients worldwide–a faster uptake than we expected.) Gov. Purdue will talk about a test project in Charlotte aimed at revolutionizing the way highways are built. Using a public-private partnership model, North Carolina is teaming up with developers who will not only perform the design and construction of the new highway sections, but will invest some of their own money, as well. If this approach works in Charlotte, Perdue plans on rolling it out across the state.
After a lunch break (you’re on your own for that), there will be breakout sessions focusing on education, public safety, transportation, government, energy, and healthcare. As somebody who attended university in Pittsburgh, I’m particularly interested in hearing from Dr. Daniel Martich, the chief medical information officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. UPMC is reinventing itself as a laboratory for innovations in healthcare technology and new approaches to delivering care.
For participants, there will be plenty of opportunities to weigh in. There will be a question-and-answer session after the major addresses and interactive discussions during each breakout panel. Participants will type their comments and questions on their computers.
Who knows, maybe the next Jane Jacobs will emerge out of one of these events. The pool of brainpower is certainly getting big enough to make that possible.
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As readers of this blog will remember, over the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time convening leaders from the public and private sectors to discuss the future of our cities. We started in Berlin in June, then, in November hosted another Smarter Cities forum in New York City. In between these major international sessions, we’ve been hosting dozens of local fora in cities around the world. We’ve had mayors, governors, CEO and a whole host of civic and federal officials participate in the conversations. In fact, we’ll be convening another large meeting in Shanghai in early June.
But, physical events are necessarily limiting in their access and participation. Thus, to address that issue, we are going to be hosting the first ever Smarter Cities Virtual Event on February 23. The event will allow anybody to participate live, online, in discussions addressing the weighty issues our cities face, including transportation, education, energy, public safety and more. This is not just a webcast of the same content. Rather, they will be interactive sessions probing deeply on these big topics.
I’ve included a sampling of the agenda below (more details can be found on the registration page on ibm.com). We’ll be sharing some major recaps from the event here on the blog next week. You can also follow along on Twitter @smarterplanet and the event hashtag (forthcoming). But if you are interested in participating in the conversation live, register now.
Here’s a sampling of the agenda:
Main tent:
- Bridget Van Kralingen, IBM
- North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue
- Joseph Rigby, President & CEO, Pepco Holdings
As in all of our Smarter Cities conferences, the “main tent” sessions are followed by interactive breakout sessions probing much deeper into the major systems that comprise a smarter city. The Virtual Smarter Cities Forum will host the following:
- Smarter Energy, moderated by Guido Bartels, IBM and Todd McGregor, PHI
- Smarter Transportation, moderated by Gerry Mooney, IBM; Pat McCrory, Moore & Van Allen, (and former Mayor of Charlotte, NC); and Bob Kingston, McCarran Airport, Las Vegas
- Smarter Government, moderated by Nicole Gardner, IBM; Barbara Ramsey, Oklahoma Employment Security Commission; and Don R. Edwards, Alameda County Social Services Agency
- Smarter Education, moderated by Mike King, IBM; J.L. Albert, Georgia State University; and Sharon P. Pitt, George Mason University
- Smarter Public Safety, moderated by George Cruser, IBM; Stephen Hollifield, City of Richmond Police; and Pat McCrory, McCrory & Co. (and former Mayor of Charlotte, NC)
- Smarter Healthcare, moderated by Patrick Boyle, IBM; Daniel Martich, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center; and Asif Ahmad, of Duke University Health System
We hope to “see” you next week.
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Following is a special guest post from Former Lieutenant General John Fairfield of the U.S. Air Force:
With IT spending reaching nearly $80 billion in the new fiscal budget for 2011, agencies throughout the U.S. federal government are looking at ways to tighten their belts and increase efficiency. One emerging technology that holds great promise is cloud computing. In a cloud environment, IT resources such as applications, storage devices and servers are shared and delivered as services over the Internet.
But the big stumbling block to widespread adoption in federal agencies is the issue of security. How do you protect sensitive, classified data from the ever-growing threat of cyber attacks if the data is sitting in a public or private cloud somewhere?
The U.S. Air Force has decided to tackle this issue head-on and they’ve asked for IBM’s help. During the next 10 months, IBM researchers, software architects, cyber security experts and analytics specialists will work alongside military personnel and representatives from other federal agencies to hopefully overcome the hurdle.
Cyber security is a global issue, so the potential benefits of this project extend far beyond U.S. military services. The U.S. Air Force recognizes that new thinking, new technologies, and new levels of collaboration between government and industry will be required to find viable solutions. As a retired Air Force lieutenant general, I’m extremely proud that my service branch is taking the initiative to get ahead of one of the world’s greatest security challenges.
John S. Fairfield, a former Lieutenant General in the U.S. Air Force, is the director of strategic sales for IBM’s U.S. Federal Business.
[Editor's note: a press release with more details about this announcement can be found here at ibm.com.]
By 2050, nearly three quarters of our planet’s population will live in cities. Public safety will be a key factor in determining which city they choose, as well as determining the economic health of the city. IBM is working with clients and municipalities to help make cities smarter and safer. It helped New York reduce its crime by 27% using real-time data integrated data analysis, and helped Singapore significantly reduce traffic congestion. Learn more about how IBM is helping make public safety smarter.
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Following is a guest post from and Jennifer McFadden and Ben Berkowitz of SeeClickFix:
The future of the local social web lies at the confluence of two emerging realities: Government 2.0 and Media 2.0. Here we see social networking tools, user-centered design, wikis, blogs, and mashups being used to create novel networks and platforms that enable a new civic reality: Community 2.0.
According to technologist Tim O’Reilly, Government 2.0 has several defining characteristics. Foremost is the concept of government as a platform, rather than a service, that enables the development of an ecosystem of self-governance, transparency and accountability. Whereas Government 1.0 represents power in the hands of the few; Government 2.0 represents power in the hands of the many. Citizens become participants, rather than observers, in their local government, actively engaging with civic leaders, government officials, and each other to proactively define and solve the most pressing local issues.
The social web is also leading to new models in the media industry. According to Jeff Jarvis, the hierarchical, siloed world of mainstream media is being replaced by a new news ecosystem that is ever-dependent on a network of voices and links. There is no longer one centralized, autocratic, top-down news source, but a series of linked enterprises—both large and small—that work together to report on local issues. These professional and amateur journalists do what they do best and link to the rest, creating a richer and more vibrant community of voices at the local level.
The new news ecosystem is built on an interlocking system of platforms. Imagine if you combined hyper-local versions of WikiLeaks and data.gov, with SeeClickFix, Document Cloud, Meetup, citizen journalists, and local news sites. You would end up with a new news ecosystem that is more transparent and efficient. Using these tools, news organizations with smaller editorial teams would still be able to perform the critical watchdog function that is a necessary component of a well-functioning democracy.
In Community 2.0, the relationship between government, the press, and the citizenry evolves into something that is much more transparent, engaging, and active. It is about redefining the idea of the Fourth Estate. Members of the former audience are now producers, not just consumers. Members of the former constituency are now actors, not just voters. Community 2.0 creates a living, evolving ecosystem of citizens.
Community 2.0 is open, local and vocal. At the heart of Community 2.0 are platforms like SeeClickFix, which make the traditional modes of communicating with media and the government more iterative, process-oriented and real-time. Using these tools, voices are aggregated, issues are documented, groups are organized, actions are broadcast, and citizens are more engaged in their environments. The output is a curated, crowdsourced live stream of information detailing the most topical and timely issues in a community.
Earlier this fall, The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in Democracy released its report detailing the ways that technology can be harnessed to help local communities help themselves. Using citizen-centered design, SeeClickFix has created a multi-platform social tool that allows citizens not just to complain, but to act. It enables Community 2.0, where citizens can communicate with one another to solve the most pressing issues in their cities or towns—from graffiti to crime to potholes to transit issues. It allows citizens to self-organize, crowdsource solutions to problems, reach out to relevant public officials, and work collectively to improve the quality of life in their cities and towns. The power of the tool is not limited to the few, but open to the many.
The local social web embodied in Community 2.0 is more inclusive. Web 2.0 technologies like SeeClickFix can atomize activities to reduce a primary barrier to civic engagement—time. Unlike a town hall meeting, that requires a significant time commitment; systems like SeeClickFix account and provide for different levels of engagement and make the act of contributing to the community simple. As these constraints on participation are liberalized, a wider cross-section of the community begins to contribute to the collective efforts. In a networked information economy where citizens are linked together, the tragedy of the commons is replaced with the promise of the collective.
On SeeClickFix we have seen utility companies, clean air non-profits, police chiefs, public works officials, State Transit officials, business improvement districts, city councilman and citizens all working together and communicating on issues to resolve them. Since no one individual typically owns the problem and no one agency typically can solve it, SeeClickFix enables these types of public/private partnerships.
Something interesting occurs within a community when people begin to experience the power of the SeeClickFix platform. As with any networked tool, the utility of the tool increases exponentially as the number of users increases. Residents start by using SeeClickFix to do simple tasks, like reporting potholes and traffic issues, or noting that they would like an issue fixed. They are alerted via email when people join the conversation which allows them to see that others in the community share their concerns. These alerts draw users back into the conversation and help to create a sense of community. The next step in the evolution from resident to member of Community 2.0 is when people use the tool to self-organize to find solutions to the problem, moving the community from complaint to action.
The impact of SeeClickFix is magnified through the positive feedback loop that is created via interaction between media, citizens and the government. In New Haven, issues are being uploaded on SeeClickFix. The New Haven Independent and The New Haven Register are then using the tool to source stories. Links to the issue on SeeClickFix are embedded in these stories or in the reader comments, directing others in the community to contribute to the conversation. Links to the stories are embedded in the issue report on SeeClickFix and used as rallying cries to gather support. Emails are sent to government officials, citizens, non-profits and other interested actors detailing the issue and alerting them when someone else in the community has joined the conversation. Government officials can post on the issues and thus communicate with many citizens at once. It is these multiple layers of feedback that encourage repeated engagement.
Recently, SeeClickFix was used to report increased instances of muggings occurring in a specific block in New Haven. The New Haven Independent used SeeClickFix to source leads for a story. The story linked to SeeClickFix, where the problem had first been acknowledged. Immediately, hundreds of citizens voted to have the problem “fixed.” Neighbors used the platform to organize a neighborhood watch, suggest solutions such as better lighting and an increased police presence, and arrange a meeting with the Mayor. Officials from City Council and City Hall responded to citizens’ concerns via SeeClickFix and followed-up these online conversations with offline meetings to work to resolve the issue. These meetings have lead to promises of increased lighting from the City and the arrest of several mugging suspects. More importantly, the neighborhood is now better connected and, therefore, better prepared to self-organize to solve issues in the future. SeeClickFix has enabled the creation of Community 2.0.
This is just one example of the way that the tool is being used in one city. Now imagine a world where we have data from every city and town across the country. Through geographically-specific collaborative democracy projects, we begin to see patterns of engagement, self-organization, deliberation, and problem resolution. We can evaluate what works and what doesn’t and then share this information across the platform. Experts in one city who have discovered solutions to issues that are broadly applicable to other cities can easily disseminate this information. Web2.0 allows for the creation of a new collective commons, where hyper-local, hyper-specific issues are hashed out in an open and transparent manner and then dispersed across the network.
Through the web and tools like SeeClickFix, an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent local citizenry coalesces to become Community 2.0.
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Following is a guest post from Johan Ekesiöö, Country General Manager of IBM Sweden.
This week politicians, visionaries and representatives from different sectors come together in the city of Malmö in the south of Sweden for the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference in the EU with the theme Teaming up for the eUnion. During this conference representatives from the 27 Member States of the EU will lay out a roadmap for the five years to come.
As IBM’s Swedish Country General Manager I was asked to participate in the conference, and I gladly accepted. I did so because this conference is the place where decisions are made that will shape the future of eGovernment for the 499,794,855 citizens of the European Union.
For me as a the leader of IBM in one of the member states of the EU eGovernment is important in many ways, It’s important because it’s one of the areas where I can see IBM really making a difference in creating smart solutions that benefit governments on all levels, as well as the citizens. But it’s also important since it affects me and my family practically every day.
I live in the city of Stockholm, and driving to work I have been able to witness the impact the difference that the congestion charges have made on the traffic situation. When we built the system behind the congestion charges we worked closely with representatives from different governmental organisations, and I believe that this is how we should act when we build the Government solutions of the future.
Smarter government is about using the resources of the citizens in a smarter way to make societies work better. But to build the systems and the framework to make this possible we need to work together on all levels. We need use open standards and decide on a common vision for the future.
I believe that building global eGovernment services is not a technology issue. We can fix that part of the equation – it is about political will. In cities, countries and communities across the planet. And for us in Europe these precious days in Malmö will hopefully be a starting point for the following 5 years.
Johan Ekesiöö has been the Country General Manager for IBM Sweden since 2003. Over the years he has held several different roles in IBM including international assignments. Johan lives in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden with his family.
For more Smarter Planet-related content specific to Sweden, visit the blog, En smartare planet.
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Following is a guest post from Charles Prow.
Earlier this week, I attended an executive forum that IBM and Government Executive co-sponsored on how government can use analytics as an innovation agent. It was an eye opener on many levels.
First, the forum drew a standing-room-only crowd to the Ronald Reagan Building’s Rotunda, showing just how much interest there is in advanced analytics in government agencies. (I counted attendees from more than 70 federal agencies in the crowd.)
Second, as Tom Davenport, the keynote speaker and author of “Competing on Analytics,” pointed out: The use of analytics isn’t new in federal agencies, which have routinely used in areas such as supply chain management — to determine troop levels in the armed forces, for example – or by the IRS to measure tax compliance. What’s different now is that more agencies are beginning to embrace analytics as a strategic tool to be more efficient and transparent and as a basis for decision making.
There were lots of proof points from panelists representing the Social Security Administration (SSA), Department of Justice, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and Department of Homeland Security. For example, the SSA discussed how they are using analytics and predictive modeling to make quicker determinations on disability applications for those in need – they’ve shortened a process that once took months to weeks.
You may have noticed that your mail delivery is a lot better these days. The U.S. Postal Service attributes that to analytics: They’re extracting valuable insights from information on mail delivery to improve on-time delivery performance, which today exceeds 94 percent for first class mail.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is using analytics to predict losses on reverse mortgages so they can do a better job of pricing government-based insurance premiums to cover potential losses.
IBM used the venue to announce the opening of a new Analytics Solution Center in Washington that will focus specifically on the needs of federal agencies and other public sector organizations to use information more effectively. The center will draw on resources from more than 400 professionals, including researchers such as IBM Fellow Brenda Dietrich, a panelist at the event and an expert in business analytics and mathematical sciences, along with a host of software architects and consultants who are knowledgeable about the challenges facing public sector organizations.
Not surprising, government is one of the most data intensive industries. I was impressed and encouraged by efforts underway among federal agencies to ensure that they’re not just collecting data, but acting upon it to improve public services. It’s this kind of forward thinking that will drive transparency and accountability and better decision making.
Charles Prow is a managing partner for the public sector in IBM Global Business Services.
