Alfred Vanderpuije, Mayor of Accra, Ghana
By Alfred Vanderpuije
This week at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, leaders will come together to discuss Africa’s future. One of the three focus themes is the importance of ‘Strategic Infrastructure’ as a foundation for the continent’s growth. As Mayor of Accra and Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, I would say that there are few areas as crucial for infrastructure investment as cities.
Buoyed by an emerging oil and gas industry and a rapidly growing consumer class, Ghana’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. Investors are flocking to the country’s capital Accra to take advantage of new business opportunities and become part of this success story. Mastercard recently identified Accra as one of Africa’s top cities in terms of economic growth potential over the next few years. Local and foreign firms are also driving a number of urban development opportunities such as Ghana Cyber City, King City and Appolonia City which aim to set up modern, high-tech hubs within and around Accra. Continue Reading »
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Deepak Advani, General Manager, Cloud and Smarter Infrastructure, IBM
By Deepak Advani
The Internet Age has made it possible for dramatic amounts of information to be available at our fingertips. And as capacity expands and accessibility grows, we push ever closer to the Internet-of-things, where our physical and digital worlds are tightly coupled and leveraged.
With the ability to generate, share, store and access increasing amounts of data – Big Data – the challenge soon becomes one of management and analysis. Left alone, the mountains of seemingly disparate information are useless. But when mined intelligently, they become treasure troves of insight that can unlock benefits, such as improved customer service, equipment-saving predictive maintenance, and new business opportunities, to name a few. Continue Reading »
Timothy J. Wholey, Global Leader, Aerospace & Defense Industry, IBM Global Business Services
By Timothy J. Wholey
We live in a world that’s exploding with data. From smartphones and social networks, to airplane instrumentation and atmospheric readings, we capture more data, more quickly than ever before. It’s estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated on the planet every day.
This incredible amount of data creates challenges and opportunities for organizations, particularly in the aviation industry, because of the volume and variety of data it generates. Air traffic demand is expected to triple over the next 20 years, with passenger aircraft and fleets doubling during that time.
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First in a series in support of Big Data Week) Continue Reading »
Terry F. Yosie, President and CEO of the World Environment Center
By Terry F. Yosie
Environmental issues are big, thorny problems. Scarcities in water, food and raw materials are too complex for any single company or non-governmental organization to solve on its own. In order to make a difference, it’s necessary to collaborate with like-minded partners to achieve shared goals.
Collaboration is a normal feature of customer-supplier relationships, government-business partnerships and initiatives with universities and other partners. It’s also typical for organizations looking for new business models that can sustain profitability while addressing societal needs, natural resource management, product and service innovation, and differentiation of brand value, to name a few. Collaboration can spur organizations to redefine their business purpose by utilizing society as another kind of R&D lab for innovation. Continue Reading »
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Mitzie Hunter, CEO, Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance
By Mitzie Hunter
Like many city-dwellers worldwide, residents of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) have reached an impasse. Our congestion problems are getting worse and worse, and we now have some of the longest commuting times in North America. Congestion is not only taking a toll on our economy and our environment, but also on our health and our quality of life.
IBM’s Social Sentiment Index research pulled tens of thousands of tweets about traffic from five major cities across Canada. The exercise homed in on what our residents feel is most important—not surprisingly, Toronto’s commuters were the most active to vent their opinions. Toronto had 10,000 tweets about traffic over an 11-month period, 40 percent of which were explicitly negative. By contrast, only 20 percent of tweets in Halifax were negative. Continue Reading »
Angel Petisco, CIO, Miami-Dade County
By Angel Petisco
Most organizations would be surprised if they understood the vastness of the data they’re sitting on at any given point. But the magic happens when that data, through proper analysis and mining, is converted into useful information.
That’s what we’re doing in Miami-Dade County. Using IBM Big Data analytics we’re able to provide a greater level of service to our residents by bringing together information from more than 35 different municipal government departments and agencies. Sharing information in this way will help us solve traffic congestion challenges, improve law enforcement by helping to solve crimes faster, and reduce water waste improving the county’s stewardship of natural resources. Ultimately, such improvements to our operations will allow us to save significant costs and identify new ways to spur economic growth and job creation. Continue Reading »
Sylvie Spalmacin-Roma, Vice President, Smarter Cities, IBM Europe
By Sylvie Spalmacin-Roma
If you run over a pothole or perhaps a train is delayed on your morning commute, what do you do? It’s unlikely that you would pick up the phone to call the city to report it or attend a meeting on the topic being held by your local government. The more likely scenario is that you would take to social media to mention the location of the pothole or express your frustration with the delay.
Today’s citizens can be seen as engaged but in a very different manner. Twitter, Facebook and other social channels serve as a 24/7 town hall meeting for an increasing number of us digitally connected citizens. Social listening and analysis can be a valuable tool for cities.
People are passionate about their commute. Love it or hate it, we have much to say about it. The most recent IBM Social Sentiment Index looks at sentiment in traffic around several European cities in France, Netherlands, Spain and Germany. Continue Reading »
Ed Cole, Executive Director, Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee
By Ed Cole
Earlier this year, the New York Times ran an article in which it called Nashville, Tennessee – the “it” city.
The coverage was an exciting and complimentary tribute to Nashville as a culturally-rich, fast growing metropolitan region. The Times highlighted the culture with music and trendy restaurants, and the economic health of the region attributing that in part to our, “mix of employers in fields like health care management, religious publishing, car manufacturing and higher education, led by Vanderbilt University.”
For all the accolades in the Times piece, there was mention of a very real problem in our “it” city – the need for better transportation.
How are we going to get to enjoy all the city has to offer, the live music venues, the parks, the museums, or the chic social gatherings, if our roadways are choking with congestion? Continue Reading »
Naveen Lamba, Global Smarter Transportation leader, IBM Global Business Services
By Naveen Lamba
Circling for a parking spot, worrying about feeding the parking meters, and ultimately wondering if you should just turn around and go home. These are familiar feelings for anyone who has ever had to find a parking spot in a hurry. Not only is it frustrating, but the time spent looking for parkin
g also contributes to traffic congestion – some research suggests 30 percent on average – and air pollution.
Parking is an area of transportation that had seen little innovation until a just a few years ago. With today’s technology – from sensors to smarter meters to advanced analytics – cities can reinvent parking to help reduce congestion and make our cities more livable.
Enter Streetline, a Silicon Valley start-up that provides Smart Parking solutions to cities, garages, airports, universities and other private parking providers. The company is the creator of Parker™, a free smartphone app that guides drivers to available parking spaces in real time.
The company won the 2010 IBM SmartCamp, a global entrepreneurship program that identifies early stage start-ups in the Smarter Planet industries. Through this program, Streetline had access to a global network of experts and advisors. Since then, Streetline and IBM have continued working together.
(Next week IBM will host the 2013 Global SmartCamp Finals in New York City.) Continue Reading »
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Steve Hamm in
Stand on a busy big-city street corner at lunch time and you will witness a chaotic scene. Thousands of people are walking every which way, getting on and off buses, descending to subways, riding in cars, and walking in and out of buildings. Where did all these people come from? And where are they going? Until now, such questions were unanswerable–mysteries of the city. But no more.
Today, thanks to deep analytics, we can for the first time understand the complexities of cities in motion.
IBM Researchers have developed analytics software that provides accurate and meaningful information about massive numbers of peoples’ movements. These insights can be used by city managers to plan new transit routes, improve the efficiency of current transit systems, and coordinate the various transportation modes with a goal of making moving around in cities a lot more convenient and comfortable. The project, Insights in Motion, is a so-called First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) collaboration with transportation officials in Dubuque, Iowa, and Istanbul, Turkey.
A paper about Dubuque’s piece of the project, Dubuque Smart Travel, was presented Jan. 16 at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board.
