Jennifer Crozier, Vice President, IBM Global Citizenship Initiatives
By Jennifer Crozier
We’ve just concluded the IBM Smarter Cities Summit – a gathering of the 2013 Smarter Cities Challenge winners, urban policy influencers and IBM experts for a two-day working session of sharing global perspectives and best practices. Up for discussion were issues related to economic development, transportation, sustainability, and more. And we spent time analyzing the common characteristics of cities that are able to make demonstrable progress in becoming Smarter Cities: reliable and accessible data, clear governance and meaningful civic engagement.
These three themes emerged again and again, and seemed to transcend characteristics of a city’s geography, size or economic position.
Sylvie Spalmacin-Roma, Vice President, Smarter Cities, IBM Europe
By Sylvie Spalmacin-Roma
Innovative projects to build Smarter Cities can drive economic growth and even help make local companies more profitable. That’s what is happening in the city of Lyon, France, which is undertaking a massive transportation project to improve mobility in the region and build a more sustainable transportation network.
Lyon’s Optimod project is incredibly innovative, building an intelligent transportation system to provide citizens with predictive notification about traffic patterns. Real-time decision support will help traffic engineers detect and evaluate incidents, suggest best steps to decrease traffic congestion across the transportation network and enable faster incident response time so citizens don’t waste time in traffic. But what I find even more exciting, if not surprising, is the connection to helping local business.
Michael J. Dixon, PhD, General Manager, IBM Smarter Cities
By Michael J. Dixon
As people talk about the need for cities to become smarter, there is a temptation to believe the largest cities in the world need to lead the way. But the reality is cities that are a third of the size of Paris, Los Angeles or Tokyo have the ability to get their arms around these challenges and do something about it, even faster.
Cities like Lyon, France, Almere, Netherlands or Nuremberg, Germany. prove that technology-based overhauls don’t have to be massive, complex, multi-year mega-projects. They can be practical, tightly focused efforts that produce dependable results in a short time. City leaders—especially those in medium-size cities—can’t afford to get bogged down in the details of technology; they just want to get things done.
Greg Fischer, Mayor, Louisville, Kentucky
By Greg Fischer
I come to public service from the private sector. As a business owner, I trusted data to help me understand my companies – to figure out how to be closer to the customer, improve services, and dispense with waste.
When I became Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky – the17th largest city in theUnited States – I was determined that we would use data to improve the lives of all Louisvillians.
We are using “Big Data” to improve public health, specifically for our citizens who have asthma. InLouisville, 15 percent of our citizens have asthma – slightly higher than the state or national average. Asthma is the third most common cause of hospital stays for children. It causes expensive emergency room visits, lost time from work and school, and a diminished quality of life for the people of our city.
Andy Stanford-Clark, Master Inventor and Chief Technology Officer, Smarter Energy, IBM UK & Ireland
By Andy Stanford-Clark
Over the past few weeks I have blogged about the measures I have taken in my home and in my local village of Chale to reduce energy consumption. In this final post, I will show how we are applying the successes in Chale and starting to roll out a smarter energy strategy on a much larger scale – across the Isle of Wight, a project called “Ecoisland.”
As I mentioned in Part I and Part II of my video diary blogs – the Ecoisland initiative is an ambitious transformation program which aims to turn the Isle of Wight into the ultimate eco-region, with a dramatically reduced carbon footprint, by 2020.
Mary Keeling, Manager, Center for Economic Analysis, IBM Institute for Business Value
- By Mary Keeling
- Water is one of our most essential resources – yet much of the water we use every day is “hidden” as an indirect, yet critical, component of something else – food, health, energy, transportation and more. And of all the water on Earth, only 1 percent of it is useable by ecosystems and humans. In other words, a little bit of water needs to go a long way.
As the world’s population increases from today’s 7 billion to an estimated 8 billion in 2025, the demand for water will rise to satisfy increased demand for food, particularly as meat consumption in global diets increase. Every time you consume a kilo of beef you many not realize that it takes 15,500 liters of water to produce it. For comparison, it takes 1,300 liters of water to produce a kilo of wheat.
Andy Stanford-Clark, Master Inventor and Chief Technology Officer, Smarter Energy, IBM UK & Ireland
By Andy Stanford-Clark
About four years ago, I set out on a personal mission to significantly reduce the energy use in my home. Today, I’m pleased to say that I have made some big steps towards that goal, but more importantly – my home turf – the Isle of Wight, is embarking on a journey for the whole island to become energy self-sufficient, in a project called “Ecoisland.” My efforts at home were my own personal hobby: the Ecoisland project is a much larger, collaborative effort!
Why am I writing about this now? Well, this week IBM took part in the Ecoislands Global Summit. Ecoisland is an ambitious transformation program which aims to turn the Isle of Wight (home to 140,000 citizens) into the ultimate eco-region, with a dramatically reduced carbon footprint by 2020. IBM and other companies are working with the Ecoisland project to develop innovative ways to save energy and reduce emissions and waste, while also cutting the islanders’ fuel bills – potentially by up to 50 percent. Continue Reading »
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David Bartlett, Vice President, Industry Solutions, Smarter Buildings, IBM Software Group
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Every time you walk into a building, think about this: it’s alive and kicking and wants to be fed.
It’s not just some static structure standing there. As Dave Bartlett, vice president of smarter buildings at IBM, sees it, a building is remarkably analogous to a living organism.
The heating and cooling system is also the building’s respiratory system, bringing in fresh air and removing carbon dioxide. It consumes enormous amounts of energy and water along with producing the associated waste.
The musculoskeletal system provides form, support, stability and movement to the building. Sensors, computer monitoring and other instrumentation make up the building’s nervous system.
Charles Vincent, Chief Architect, IBM Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities
By Fabienne Guildhary, IBM Communications, Energy & Utilities/Media & Entertainment
Often, history serves as a tool to teach us valuable lessons and help us avoid repeating the same mistakes. As Chief Architect of the IBM Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities, Charles Vincent is leveraging his considerable knowledge of Electric Vehicles (EVs) to better shape the future of transportation.
Charles’ passion for EVs was sparked long before his career in electronic transportation took off. Fascinated by the technology at an early age, Charles devoted a lot of time poring over vintage publications on the subject, such as American Electric Vehicle Association newsletters from the early 1900’s. Then in the 1980’s, Charles got the opportunity to put his knowledge and passion to work.
This is part two of a series about Smarter Public Safety. Read part one here.
By Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier
Just over 20 years ago, Washington, D.C., was known as the “Murder Capital” of the United States. I was a fairly new officer when we were given this title and believe me, it was not something I was proud of and I committed myself to ensuring I did what I could to change that. Fast forward to a year ago and I can’t tell you how proud I was to announce that our homicide rate has dropped to a 50-year low.
