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Steve Hamm in
Intel’s purchase yesterday of security software maker McAfee, detailed in this News.com story, signals a shift in the tech industry’s view of how to better secure computers, networks, and software programs: Security has to be built in, rather than added on later. It’s the concept of “secure by design.”
At IBM, the secure-by-design concept extends to encompass our Smarter Planet agenda. These days, its not enough to secure the traditional computing infrastructure. You’ve got to protect all of the devices and networks that are now being used to monitor, manage, and analyze everything from smart electrical grids to health care systems. “All of the physical assets of the world are becoming digitized, instrumented, interconnected and intelligent,” says Kristin Lovejoy, head of IBM security strategy. “But the sad reality is that as people develop and design these new technologies they’re not thinking enough about the issue of security. These devices are so critical that if they’re unavailable or if they’re tampered with, it could have a significant negative impact on an individual or a large population.”
When security is an afterthought, it tends to be expensive and not that effective. Plus, organizations typically find out about a vulnerability after it has already been exploited by malicious software programs.
We believe that only by designing products to be secure can organizations gain the protection they need at a reasonable price. With that principle in mind, IBM has established what we call a secure engineering framework. It’s a set of specifications that we are beginning to use in all of our design processes, for hardware and software alike.
Now that the world’s critical infrastructure is being wired and networked, security is becoming more important than ever before. Business-as-usual in the tech industry isn’t good enough any more.
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Steve Hamm in
You name it. The faculty members at Carnegie Mellon University who are connected with the Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research (CenSCIR) are busy applying smarter-planet technologies and thinking to practically any system of physical infrastructure. Now, in connection with IBM, the organization’s leaders are creating a physical place to serve as sort of a clubhouse for researchers and organizations that want to tap into their brain power.
The IBM Smarter Infrastructure Lab, announced today, is going to be a 1,000-square-foot facility within one of the the university’s buildings. It will be equipped with engineering workstations, 3-D displays, a telepresence set up, massive data storage capabilities, and access to powerful clusters of number-crunching computers. “Here, people can organize and visualize their work. It will be a showcase for what we do,” says James H. Garrett, Jr., the co-director of CenSCIR and head of CMU’s civil and environmental engineering department.
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Karl Roche in
Back in June I mentioned how Coventry was running the worlds first city-wide Jam to open up a conversation with residents and business to find innovative ways to make the city smarter.
A month on and 2,000 posts later, IBM and Coventry are teaming up to make the ideas raised in CovJam real and transforming Coventry over the next 30 years.
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louislazarus in
Slideshow: IBMer Michele Grieshaber shares her team's Corporate Service Corps adventure in Ho Chi Minh City.
Ten million hours is a lot of time. 1,141 years, actually. So it is somewhat amazing to learn that that’s the total amount of time IBMers have spent volunteering through IBM’s On Demand Community initiative over the last five years.
Over a millennium of cumulative volunteer service in communities around the world; that’s a remarkable milestone in our journey to build a smarter planet.
That it is just one of the interesting pieces of information you’ll find in IBM’s latest Corporate Responsibility Report. The report provides an annual update on IBM’s strategies, activities and results in the areas of governance, supply chain, the environment, employment practices and community partnerships. You can access this interactive version that will let you dive into specific content and learn about how IBMers are making the planet healthier, more sustainable and smarter.
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vineeta durani in
This year alone, more than 1200 exabytes of digital information will be created. And with just one exabyte equal to one trillion novels, companies are faced with the challenge of getting their arms around massive amounts of data. Data that is being generated by their internal business applications, their IT systems, social networks and various other external sources such as the nearly 1 trillion internet-connected devices.
While some organizations struggle with this deluge of data, others are turning it into opportunity. Today, IBM is launching a new series of client success stories, shining a light on how businesses and governments from around the world are turning mountains of data into concrete opportunities to better serve their clients, improve citizen service and innovate in ways that have never been possible. And with more than 250,000 organizations around the world using IBM analytics, this is just the beginning.
Analyze This: DC Water
How do you monitor a water system that in part dates back to the mid 1800s? How do emergency responders know that the fire hydrant next to a burning building will work?
The answer doesn’t lie in expensive infrastructure projects or overhauling of water management systems — it lies in connecting the dots with relevant data. Predictive analytics is helping DC Water analyze enormous amount of data on weather conditions, maintenance and hundreds of other variables to uncover usage patterns and spot problems, like water main breaks, before they occur.
To learn more, visit the new IBM business analytics channel on You Tube: www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics
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Steve Hamm in
When communities set out on massive, multidimensional civic improvement projects, a necessary first step is gaining agreement from the principle players in government, business, and the non-profit sphere on what they want the city or region to be–its brand, if you will. This is a conclusion IBM executives have drawn from dozens of Smarter Cities engagements in communities scattered all over the globe.
That ambition is more easily stated than accomplished, but some of the work IBM is doing in Poland points to lessons that could help community leaders elsewhere.
Katowice, with a population of about 300,000, is the unofficial capital of the Silesa region in southern Poland, which is known for its coal mining, steel making, and other heavy industries. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region has suffered economically. Its coal mines, in particular, became less competitive, resulting in a loss of tens of thousands of mining jobs.
Fortunately, the city and the region have some inspired and energetic leaders, among them Katowice Mayor Piotr Uszok. The goal is to shift to high-tech and service industries–supported by improvements in the transportation system. Uszok asked IBM for help in devising an economic renewal plan, and, as a first step, we sent in a five-person team from our Corporate Service Corps to help size up the situation.
The CSC, which has been called a “business” version of the Peace Corps, sends small groups of IBMers with diverse talents into countries or cities to help them craft economic development strategies, beef up government services, and improve systems such as transportation, health, and water. Some of the teams, such as the one that went to Poland, are made up entirely of executives–bringing a higher level of expertise and management skills to the projects.
Visiting Katowice this spring, the team engaged with a group of community leaders who have been jointly developing regional strategies for several years. At the same time, they’re open to new ideas, particularly along the themes of attracting foreign investors to create new jobs, improving the quality of life, and updating the transportation system.
The team members met with about 200 people from government, academia, and businesses. From these conversations they drafted a set of recommendations, which they presented to mayor Uszok in a marathon five-hour meeting. (The mayor demonstrated his commitment to strategic planning by continuing the meeting even though the city was under a severe flood threat.)
LA has the reputation, deserved or not, for having some of the worst traffic jams. Well, the pressure’s off. A first-ever global survey of motorists in 20 large cities conducted by IBM shows that when it comes to traffic, LA is practically commuter nirvana compared to some of the world’s other metropolises. On a scale of 0 to 100, taking into account such variables as commuting time, stuck-in-traffic time, and driving-caused stress, Beijing, Mexico City, and Johannesburg were practically off-the-charts painful, with scores of 99, 99, and 97. Meanwhile, LA scored 25, just six points higher than New York City. The best places were Stockholm, with a score of 15, and Melbourne, 17.
The results of the survey point to a growing global need: Better management of transportation systems to get people where they want to go faster. “In the mega cities in fast-developing countries, they need to address these issues with a high level of urgency or their transportation systems will break down completely. Every street could become a parking lot,” says Naveen Lamba, the industry lead for intelligent transportation in IBM’s Global Business Services division.
The detailed results of the survey show that many of the efforts to take the pressure off highways aren’t catching hold. For instance, carpooling gets only low-single-digit participation in most of the cities. New Delhi, with 11%, and Johannesburg, with 8%, are a couple of the relative bright spots. More typical are Buenos Aires’ 4% and Houston’s 3%. In the United States, neither the establishment of HOV lanes or commuter parking lots has made much of a difference. The ranks of telecommuters are sparse all over, too. Just 4% of those in Johannesburg work at home–the highest rate. It’s zero in Madrid, Moscow, Beijing, and Mexico City.
Indications are that the situations in some burgeoning cities will only get worse. Right now only 39% of commuters in Beijing drive their own cars, compared to 92% in LA. But the situation is changing fast. The number of new cars registered in Beijing in the first four months of 2010 rose 23.8% to 248,000, according to the Beijing municipal taxation office. Clearly, when more people in Beijing own cars, the authorities will have to add even more ring roads to the ever-growing network of highways encircling the city.
Fortunately, Beijing authorities aren’t counting on highway projects alone to address their exploding transportation needs. Beijing’s total investments in its subway system are projected to be nearly $50 billion through 2015 as the city more than doubles its current reach, according to Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co., Ltd.
Across the globe, relief will come only when cities and metropolitan regions consolidate authority over all or most transportation modes on a single agency–or a small handful of agencies. Lamba says they need to coordinate the operations of everything from roads and bridges to ferries, trains, and subways. That way, they can put together a package of incentives and disincentives that redistribute commuters to different modes of transportation–with the primary goal of removing many one-person cars from the roads at peak travel times. Such an approach is working in Singapore and London, and is beginning to work in Dubai.
I saw one bright spot in the survey results that gave me a little bit of hope for the future: a handful of cities where large numbers of people bicycle or walk to work. For instance, 23% of Amsterdam’s commuters use bicycles as a primary mode of transportation; and 10% of the people in Buenos Aires walk. Unfortunately, in many cities, the places where people work and live have been divorced from each other, so there’s little hope of changing the situation in any meaningful way. Or, maybe that’s too bleak a conclusion. What if cities set up something like those airport people conveyors on sidewalks or streets? Weather’s a factor, sure, but maybe there’s a way it could be done.
Mexico City’s congestion problems
How do you involve thousands of people in shaping how a city should be run? In a word, Jam.
Coventry City Council in the UK is running the first city based Jam, to take the conversation beyond city leader to its citizens. Why? Because none of us have all the answers. Pulling from a wider pool of people, experiences, backgrounds and expertise will give Coventry an edge in finding out what it needs to provide to its people and business.
Image via Wikipedia
Coventry CC is calling their event the CovJam, and it will be taking place on 29 and 30 June and 1 July.
It looks to be a great event for the people in and around Coventry (or even from Coventry) to shape the way they live. A real step on the way to building a smarter city in the heart of the UK.
If you would like to be one of those taking part, please e-mail:communications@coventry.gov.uk with the subject line “CovJam”
What’s a Jam?
A Jam is an online discussion (think brainstorming on an epic scale) around a group of pre-selected themes, that an organisation wants to find innovative answers to. Within the themes there are many discussions happening at once. The event is driven by specially invited subject matter experts, stakeholders and hosts, that help highlight interesting and valuable contributions from people like you and me, taking part in the Jam.
As you may know we have had lots of Jams in IBM, its become part of the culture and especially this version which is a mini-Jam, essentially a more focused Jam with fewer themes.
This Jam will be covering the following themes:
- The rebirth of Coventry: The urban design for a future city. What do we do to the centre of Coventry to make people want to live here, work here, shop here, socialise here?
- Sent to Coventry: Be inventive. What does Coventry really want to be known for?
- Aspiring Coventry: Yes we can! Aiming high and fulfilling our potential. How can the people of Coventry believe in themselves and their city?
- Community Cohesion: Getting on together and celebrating diversity. As the city continues to grow and change, will it remain relaxed and at peace with itself with its citizens feeling a strong sense of place and able to get along with each other
- Citizens in the driving seat: The relationship between the state and the individual
Good luck to everyone taking part – Jams are usually a blast.
More details on the Coventry CC web site.
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Steve Hamm in
IBM isn’t the only organization that thinks cities could be a lot “smarter.” For six years, students and faculty members at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab have been investigating the potential for digital technologies to improve the experience of living in cities. They’ve completed dozens of projects around the world. The Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, a non-profit in San Francisco focused on the intersection of digital art and social progress, recently opened a show, senseable cities, highlighting 15 of the Lab’s projects. Very cool stuff.
The concept behind these projects is simple. Gather data about city life from a wide variety of sources, crunch it, and display it in visual forms–so it has maximum impact. One of the projects, Trash Track, uses cellular GPS tags attached to a variety of different kinds of refuse to follow its path from the dumpster to its ultimate resting place. Another, Copenhagen Wheel, captures traffic and pollution data gathered from bicycles. A third, Real Time Rome, uses mobile phone use patterns to show the movement of people after sporting events in the city.
I saw the show last week along with a handful of IBMers and creative agency colleagues. Our guide was Peter Hirshberg, a former Apple executive and serial entrepreneur who is on the foundation’s board of directors. He told us that bringing together data, analysis, and visualization “puts the science back in social science. You can begin acting on this stuff.”
One of the most empowering aspects of the projects is that citizens don’t just see their world mapped out in new ways, they participate in the mapping–which increases their commitment to making change happen in their communities.
The Gray Area gallery is located in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, the city’s longtime Red Light district–a gritty area with a high poverty rate and a lot of homeless people. In fact, the gallery is housed in a former porn video parlor, and still has the funky “Arts Theatres” marquee out front.
One of the foundation’s goals is to improve the neighborhood. In connection with the senseable cities show, it teamed with a local public television station (KQED) and other community organizations to sponsor an event called CITYCENTERED, a symposium, workshops, and neighborhood walk aimed at getting people engaged in the community. One piece, for example, Urban Remix, was a participatory media project that uses mobile phones as a platform for capturing the sounds and images of city neighborhoods–useful for documenting noise pollution and other obnoxious messes.
For people like me, who love cities but wish they were a bit more livable, this stuff is exciting. If you want to learn more or get involved, the show runs until Aug. 11 at the Gray Area gallery, 55 Taylor Street. But if you can’t see the show there, it will be traveling to San Jose and Amsterdam later this year and to New York, Tokyo, and other places next year.
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Steve Hamm in
We’ve been talking about creating a smarter planet for a year and a half, but it’s a lot more than talk. At this point, IBM has engaged with 430 clients on smarter cities projects and we’ve learned a lot about how this sort of thing gets done. Ginni Rometty, IBM’s senior vice president for sales and distribution, talked about the lessons at SmarterCities Shanghai.
These are complex situations. Cities are systems of systems, from transportation and health care to public safety and utilities. Understanding the workings of each individual system is complex by itself. But to improve the functioning of cities you have to understand and manage the interdependencies between the systems. So it’s a step by step journey, Rometty said.
Step #1: Instrument to manage. You’ve got to collect a lot of data; then understand it, manage it, and act on it. She mentioned a great example. It’s not a city situation, actually, but it demonstrates the power of instrumentation: In New Zealand, farmers discovered that dairy cows produce more milk when when they listen to music. But all cows don’t have the same taste in music, so farmers use the RFID tags attached to each cow to identify them when they enter the milking stall and play each one the music they like best. Who knew!
Step #2: Integrate to innovate. By combining data from many related sources, city leaders can draw superior insights. A good illustration is New York City’s Realtime Crime Center. The city gathers a tremendous amount of data about crimes and criminals and makes it available to police managers and individual police officers on a realtime basis. This makes it possible for police to respond quickly and to even anticipate crimes, and to predict where a person might go after they commit a crime. The system has contributed to the city’s incredible public safety improvements: The crime rate has dropped by 27% since 2001.
Step #3: Optimize to transform. All the data in the world doesn’t matter much if you don’t do something with it–have an impact on people’s day-to-day lives. A cool example here is Singapore. The tiny country is pushing public transportation hard. Working with IBM Research, it has developed a system that makes it possible for bus riders to find out if their bus is going to be on time. In the future, they’ll be able to know if a bus is overcrowded. Maybe they’ll wait for one with open seats. It’s all part of an effort to make public transportation both a way of life and a pleasurable experience.
Actually, there’s another step that’s got to come first, Rometty said. That’s getting all of the parties involved in the project to agree on what their common ambition is. Otherwise, they’ll be pulling against each other from beginning to end.
