This workshop provides an overview of IoT applied while architecting smart city applications. The session provides building blocks and schematic of few case studies of smart cities. Attendees will learn fundamentals of IoT infrastructure and networking technologies such as IPv4, IPV6, Wi-Fi, BLE, 6LowPAN, ZigBee and Cellular concepts....

Starting with an overview of the term "Smart City" – what it is and why there is so much buzz around the term, this course is designed to provide municipal leaders and their partners with a framework for smart city planning that course participants can apply in their community. Course participants will consider questions including: - What is Smart City? - What constitutes a Smart City project? - Around what issues do experts agree and disagree when it comes to Smart City deployments? - How are local governments and their project partners evaluating the Return-on-Investment (ROI) and Impact of Smart City Projects? - What are some of the most helpful Smart City resources for local governments and their partners?

Have you heard that the Department of Defense (DoD) is looking to do business with "non-traditional" entities in research and cutting edge technology industries? That is, those who have not done business with the DoD before but would be interested in doing so except for the bureaucracy? Come learn about DoDs acquisition and procurement basics and details regarding Other Transactions (OTs), Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Research (SBIR/STTR) and Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF) programs. Attend this workshop if you would like an understanding of DoD procurement basics and want answers to the following questions: - Where do I find research and technology opportunities? - What is the process to access DoD funding for these types of opportunities? - What is the impact on Venture Capital Investment? - What is the impact on intellectual property ownership? - Where do I find Program Managers for research and technology opportunities?

Community owned broadband networks are poised to transform access to affordable and resilient Internet connections across America; broadband networks are the 21st century bridges to economic opportunity. Communities can and should own their own broadband networks and they can leverage the hidden economic engine that for centuries has defined our nation as a rich tapestry of self-reliant places: the humble municipal bond — the original impact investment as the bedrock of the community capital stack. Now, we need to harness the power of high performance public finance to advance the transformative projects that will build smart cities across the country.

You can’t be a smart city until you’re first a connected city. And becoming a connected city requires a tight collaboration between municipalities, utilities and commercial businesses to provide solutions that benefit the citizens of those communities – and do so in such a way that it’s affordable, respectful of the environment and sustainable. The demand for data is growing exponentially and is expected to stay on this steep growth curve for the foreseeable future. Finding sustainable solutions to deliver this increasing need for data requires leveraging existing infrastructure and finding simple and smart solutions that keep costs low. Ian Aaron, the CEO of Ubicquia, a global leader in simply smart, simply connected network and IoT platforms for smart cities, will discuss creative smart city solutions that leverage the hundreds of millions of streetlight poles and light fixtures that currently exist worldwide – to help cities and operators rapidly densify their networks, improve wireless network capacity and increase macro network efficiency.

This session will cover four key technologies impacting the future of mobility and transportation. - Connected Vehicles - Autonomous Vehicles - Distributed Ownership - Electric Vehicles The session will describe to what extent these technologies will depend on each other, what's coming when, and how these technologies will impact society.

The cost of disasters has been increasing exponentially since the 1970s. Cities are mostly affected, which is not surprising because they produce 80% of the world gross domestic product (GDP). The majority of disasters are related to climate events, so cities are also part of the root cause because they generate 75% of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Mayors understand that a smart city needs, first and foremost, to be both resilient to face increasing disasters and sustainable to reduce their city’s environmental impact and to improve quality of life – all while being financially affordable. Cities can’t function without electricity. It moves subways and trains. It cools, heats, and lights our homes and businesses. It pumps our water and keeps the food we eat fresh. And it powers the technologies that are the foundation of a smart city. By implementing smart grid technologies such as microgrids and distribution automation, electric utilities play a key role in making cities both resilient and sustainable. This discussion will review cities that are moving forward.

Citizen 360 combines a variety of tools and techniques to provide a complete view of Citizen needs and behavior within a city. Citizen 360 involves the application of Customer Journey Analytics on multiple large-scale data sets describing citizen movement and other experiences within and around the city. It is an adaptation of existing Customer Journey Analysis techniques making use of a variety of available data. Customer Journey Analytics has been successfully applied in other industries such as banking and retail for number of years and are now being applied to smart city initiatives to help drive economic value for a city’s citizens and visitors. It is likely that this will have significant positive impact on economic development since smart tourism will influence the growth of tourism and visitor dollars.

Throughout the ages, every vision-related technological innovation (e.g. fire, glasses, optics) has significantly improved human quality of life*. AI Vision, the latest innovation in sight, will similarly help Smart Cities meet one of their primary goals of improving the quality of life for citizens. The panel, which comprises government, technology, and business experts with experience in Smart Cities and implementing AI technology across industries, will discuss applications and use-cases of AI Vision that can help Smart Cities meet their goal. The discussion will cover the key challenges for AI Vision adoption in Smart Cities, including deployment and public perception, and provide specific tactics to address these challenges. The panelists will also discuss specific ways that AI technology will better people’s lives, in areas such as public safety, traffic coordination and waste management.

In order to incorporate the imminent change that Smart City opportunities present, new partnerships must be created with subject matter experts across a variety of fields. The purpose of this panel is to highlight a city/university collaboration that has stretched to meet challenges and work in new ways, understanding that no single entity has all of the solutions or assets to build a Smart Cities portfolio alone. The panelists will discuss four prominent projects of the Gainesville Smart Cities partnership, including: launching an autonomous shuttle in a live, mixed traffic setting; deploying shared smart lighting sensor infrastructure within and outside of the university campus; creating a research awards program to utilize the local community as a living laboratory; and developing a shared co-working space for city staff and university experts to collaboratively think, plan and execute Smart Cities initiatives.

Entertainment districts are driving consumer interest in smart city technologies. These mixed-use areas are revitalizing cities, driving commerce, and introducing people form all walks of life to smart city technologies. A panel of experts representing technology providers and district developers will discuss lessons learned, technology challenges, and smart strategies for deployment.

The goal of this panel will be to highlight these cities and what challenges and goals they are addressing, what projects they have implemented, and the results they are realizing. In addition, it will address leadership, politics, financing to get these pragmatic solutions implemented and where do we go from here? strategy and vision?

Large mixed-used developments are at the epicenter of urban design and smart city technology convergence. Applying a human-centric design approach to these urban districts provides us the opportunity to introduce smart city technologies into our daily lives. A discussion with a panel of industry experts about the collaborative design-led approach by developers, technology and the city to deliver both the utility of Smart City services and experience enhancement of consumer services.

Cities share what it means to remain relevant, safe, and invested in a time of digital transformation. Hear about the unique challenges and opportunities facing city leaders and what the future may hold for connected communities.

The network densification challenge poses a problem that cities and carriers alike are facing today. Growing populations plus more connected devices vying for unlimited data has led to an ever-increasing bandwidth deficit. According to Small Cell Forum, an expected 1+ million Small Cells will be deployed in urban areas by 2020 to support 5G and densification. These need to be hosted somewhere in a city – on agreed infrastructure, while delivering optimal service, without disrupting streetscape aesthetics. Small Cell and other ICT network technologies to support 5G network densification need to be deployed densely, affordably, and ubiquitously through a city exactly where the people are. This panel session will discuss this shared challenges and solutions being used among network operators, wireless carriers, and city officials to bring 5G to life. Dig into how private-public-partnerships can unlock multi-purpose smart infrastructure that’s already being used in Smart Cities - for example, the core necessity of public waste bins. This smart infrastructure sits in the public right of way to provide a core city service and can do much more for the community as a hosting platform for Small Cell and other ICT technologies.

Many project that by 2025, most new purchases of transit buses will be battery electric due to emissions reductions and cost savings. Currently New York City, Los Angeles, Reno, Stockton, Seattle and just today, San Francisco have committed to 100% battery electric transit in the next ten years with more to follow. This is not only because of emissions reductions but because the Total Cost of Ownership in the twelve-year life of a bus will save $150-200,000 per bus. In New York City with 5700 buses this amounts to an annual savings of $71,000,000.

This fast moving session will feature world class technology companies presenting smart solutions and services to a panel of global city officials. Each presenting company will have the opportunity to present data, client testimonials and closing arguments for why they are best-in-class within their market segment. City officials will have the opportunity lead a short Q&A session with each presenting company.

This panel will discuss and present state of the art AR/VR applications that enhance the training and operation of first responders during a crisis/disaster (e.g. Hurricanes, Active Shooters, fires, terrorist attacks, etc). More precisely, in response to Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and Maria, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Texas State University partnered with EMS personnel, the City of Austin, and US Ignite to design and develop an AR/VR/360 training for first responders who work large scale emergencies. The panel speakers will perform a live demo and have an interactive discussion with the audience to showcase how new technologies can be used for the benefit of the community.

This panel of city leaders and innovators will discuss their mobility priorities and the biggest challenges they are facing in transforming urban mobility. The moderated panel will look at best practices and lessons the cities have learned as they cope with a changing mobility landscape, industry disruptions, and the complexities of implementing new services.

Representatives from Kahua, Gilbane Building Company and Site 1001 will describe in detail the transformation of owning, operating and managing today’s new construction projects. From cradle to grave, attendees will learn how advances in technology and methodology allow stakeholders to not only deliver the highest performance capital assets at the lowest possible cost, but also achieve absolute understanding and visibility to the performance of the asset in real-time. The combination of these technological advancements positions every building conceived, born and delivered “smart.” Panelists will present their views and how these improvements will reshape the way Smart Cities are constructed and managed.

The city of Montreal is currently deploying a wireless network infrastructure, 10 feet in the air, through its 250 000 luminaries. This $28M project harness innovative technologies and new ways of doing, for the development of a smart and sustainable city. Isabelle Lessard, Engineer for the City of Montreal will discuss about the steps and challenges they have gone through during the entire process. To be in line with Montreal’s vision, different independent manufacturers have been selected as suppliers. This interoperability brought some challenges such as disparate communication methods, communication protocols, encryption methods or patented technology. Bernard Têtu, CEO of DimOnOff, specializing in smart cities control systems, will join the conversation to discuss on how his company helped Montreal to outcome these challenges and built a license-free communication network architecture that enables gradual integration of additional smart IoT devices and services. Jonelle Kreiner, Microsoft Smart Cities IOT Expert will be on hand to share how other cities are also approaching these challenges.

For 55 years, we have worked with Landscape Architects, City Planners, Transportation Departments, etc., providing Site amenities, the furniture of city streets and university campuses. We have tried to bring the Smart City technology community into closer contact with the design communities most responsible for city functions as they now exist. We believe that by having the design and technology communities working together vigorously the transition to Smart City opportunities can be accomplished with greater success, lower cost, and better outcomes. By taking advantage of each others' expertise, the outcomes can be enhanced. The two groups will ultimately need each other's vision, but by joining together sooner, major mistakes can be avoided. Such issues as anthropomorphic details, accessibility, integrated design concepts etc., and seasonality, need not be in conflict with the huge benefits of Smart City Technologies. We want to have a panel including one or more Landscape Architects and/or a City planner, address design issues and mechanisms for inclusion in what will be the Smart City Design Community of the future. The audience is technology and function, driven. The inclusion of the design community can be helpful and timely.

With the increasing concentration of people, vehicles and resulting transportation data all flooding into smart cities, agencies are understandably overwhelmed by the sheer volume and diversity of information that they have access to. Matters are complicated further because transportation data is typically not stored in a central repository and has varying quality, coverage and latency attributes. To help bring some clear, achievable strategies to the table, attendees at this session will learn how smart cities can: - harness transportation data to create actionable information that addresses mobility and congestion issues - identify and protect the most vulnerable road users, such as bicyclists and pedestrians - create a digital backbone to deploy intelligent infrastructure that better serves all especially vulnerable road users - decide what data, analytics, performance measures and platforms should be considered - establish transportation data governance - prepare for the tsunami of data that connected and automated vehicles will generate

The Defense Innovation Technology Acceleration Challenges (DITAC) are designed to accelerate private-sector and defense-sourced technology solutions aligned with warfighter and national security problem-sets.

We believe data is overrated. We didn’t say it’s “unimportant.” But when we talk to community leaders they aren’t crying out for “data.” It’s on their list – it’s a critical ingredient - but it isn’t in the top three priorities. The top three priorities include: 1. Ensuring you’re focused on the most pressing questions. Questions that can help you achieve your biggest aspirations or resolve your most worrying problems. 2. Getting critical insights uncovered by a skilled team of data scientists – not just someone in the organization who has a data hobby. 3. And finally, leaders need clear data visualizations to tell compelling stories to persuade their stakeholders to follow their lead and have positive impacts on their communities. In this session, the Founder of Community Data Platforms will explain the data platform framework and walk you through their widely acclaimed Nantucket Data Platform. We’ll share practical skills and recent successes as communities become smarter and stronger through the creation of community data platforms. You can't imagine communities you care about not having critical resources like schools, hospitals, and emergency services. We can't imagine a community we care about not having its own community data platform.

All cities maintain geographic data–streets, buildings, districts, municipal assets, utilities–for making maps. In smart cities, a spatial framework built from those datasets is critical for integrating and making sense of the myriad disparate datasets and datastreams becoming available. It particularly connects those data to the “Things” that represent the physical city in the digital realm. Panelists will share their experiences and discuss strategies for building and maintaining this framework, as well as working toward true “digital twins” of city assets, services, and communities.

Combating congestion, climate change, and constant growth. Cities of the future will rely on innovation in mobility which needs to be a balance of private sector innovation with public sector guidance. There’s been a proliferation of private sector mobility companies providing services, building technology enabling new mobility options, or a combination of both. This panel will investigate areas where private sector innovation has excelled to date, where it has stumbled, and highlight areas of opportunities for both parties to collaborate to fulfill the vision of a smart city. The panelists represents a diverse panel of mayoral and city staff and private sector companies providing software and hardware advancing mobility within cities.

A review of Tampa Electric’s foundational Smart LED Conversion Project, the business case through the lens of a regulated utility, and opportunities to support community stakeholder’s in facilitating a smart city.

Connected devices are a growing part of leading smart city initiatives. Most cities that are deploying devices such as smart street lights, or traffic and parking sensors, are seeking to leverage the data generated by these devices for both real-time actionable intelligence and predictive modeling using AI and machine learning tools. However, many cities struggle with developing a data architecture that can support the both the volume of data as well as the many different incoming data types. In this session we will explore strategies for turning this data into intelligence in general and explore, in more detail, what the City & County of Denver is doing to build a leverage a system of systems. Topics covered in this session: • Data Architectures for IoT, Fast Data, and Big Data • IoT Device Management and IoT Platforms • Cybersecurity for IoT • Connected Video Surveillance and Advanced Video Analytics • Customer Case Studies and Examples Come to hear about two unique approaches to managing and securing IoT data streams effectively for Smart City use cases.

Attendees will learn how a unique collaboration of experts, including a Utility Director and university Chair of Civil Engineering, took a proven technology and created new value-added innovations. This new assessment product allows cities to save millions of dollars. Low cost multi-sensor technology, used on over 70 million feet of wastewater pipe assessed in the past 15 years, represents an extraordinary opportunity for cost savings and allows for additional capital projects to be included within the same budget.

The panel will bring together representatives from several transportation agencies that have been conducting pilots that leverage both AI and in-vehicle data to manage traffic and incidents in their cities and states. The focus will be around how AI is shaping the future of traffic management, traffic engineers, emergency response and law enforcement. How can this technology not only make roads smarter but also safer.

The smart city vision requires an engagement platform that connects people and dynamic, personalized information. Disparate smart initiatives will repeatedly bear the cost of driving users to adopt proprietary interfaces. They are missing a compelling reason to engage and consume information. Trusted utility providers can be the bridge between millions of households and businesses and their local governments. While people may engage with their cities once or twice a year, they engage with their utility companies monthly or more. Utility companies hold established community networks, data-rich infrastructure, and the means to innovate quickly and scale new tech—all crucial to a meaningful smart city movement.

The goal of the Connected City is to create a mix of unique, cutting-edge communities that can successfully integrate the creation of high-wage, technology-driven jobs, unique applications of the technology to education, health care, and public safety, and very unique amenities for live-learn-work-play residential areas to support the institutional and employment uses within the special planning area that can promote high-wage employment, encourage new start-up companies, introduce new technology into education, health care, law enforcement and other public safety functions, and provide a unique and diverse blend of smart homes and modern work-live housing elements with the technology-driven employment sector, all in a single “Connected City.”

This panel of technology executives will discuss the current state of innovation and technology trends that are shaping the smart city. From energy to infrastructure, from urban mobility to community engagement, smart IoT solutions are paving the way for city leaders to make better decisions, offer more services, allow for more efficient use of resources and better respond to citizens needs. Often referred to as the 4th Industrial Revolution, we live in a time of explosive change and digital transformation. So, how does one innovate in an environment where speed and time to market is now measured in days and weeks rather than years? How does a company navigate and motivate a workforce to develop world-class solutions agains a backdrop of political turmoil and globalization? How does one innovate in a world that is chronically disrupted, what are the key technology trends that will shape the smart city 2.0?

Cellular technology, and more specifically LTE has become an integral part of public safety communications. With coverage and connectivity improvements, first responders now use LTE-connected apparatus to record, transmit pictures, voice and video for an array of purposes. With the ratification of mission-critical enhancements by 3GPP, including mission-critical push-to-talk, proximity-based capabilities (D2D), and one-to-many broadcasting in Releases 13, 14, first responders can now really consider LTE more fully as the backbone for mission-critical communication network. Since this is the first time that public safety shifts from private-radio-like solutions for this purpose, this panel will discuss different points of view from various areas of the public safety solution chain and ecosystem on the adoption of cellular for the job.

This moderated panel will explore and identify challenges and best practices presented by the participating cities. This session will focus on Urban Operations.

The panel will be composed of Innovation, IT and Tech leaders in the city of San Antonio that have a vast depth of knowledge and applied experience. The focus of discussion will be how to attract start up companies, invest into and grow local talent as well as bridging the digital divide. The panel will be open to take questions submitted electronically throughout the discussion.

The decline in distributed renewable energy costs opens new opportunities for municipalities, counties, and the Department of Defense to achieve energy, resilience and economic development objectives. NREL supports these entities interested in pursuing renewable energy projects by providing energy planning, project procurement, and program implementation technical assistance through the Solar Energy Innovation Network and other platforms. This panel will highlight success stories with certain local partners such as Orlando, Florida and the United States Air Force. This panel will include a discussion of the lessons learned that will be valuable for other entities considering similar resilience and economic development objectives.

This workshop will include presentations and discussions of draft SCIRA Guides and Playbooks – by the Open Geospacial Consortium (OGC). Guides and Playbook topics will include, but not limited to: smart lighting, mobility, smarthub wearable tech, community engagement, flood monitoring & response, air quality monitoring, and digital public health services

Urban and rural areas are evolving to cater to changes in technology, while presenting new opportunities for improved public safety, connectivity and the overall experience of its inhabitants. Crucial to realizing the potential of these environments is the physical connectivity layer that supports the end goals of security, mobility and efficiency. This session will explore key challenges and best practices for connectivity that enables smart cities, including: · Risk Management · Network Performance · Power Optimization · Citizen Experience · Internet of City Things

This fast moving session will feature world class technology companies presenting smart solutions and services to a panel of global city officials. Each presenting company will have the opportunity to present data, client testimonials and closing arguments for why they are best-in-class within their market segment. City officials will have the opportunity lead a short Q&A session with each presenting company.

A smart city is a city that uses smart technology and integrated data to optimize urban processes and services while respecting economic, social and sustainable aspects increasing the quality of life of its urban citizens ultimately. The World’s population is expected to exceed nine billion by 2050. This growth brings the need for constructing new buildings, new roads, and transportation systems. %75 of the infrastructure that will have been built by 2050 is inexistent today. Many more cities around the world are expected to be smart cities, and more than half of those will be in North America and Europe by 2025. The stakeholders (start-ups, cities, NGOs, energy, technology, mobility, utility companies) need to focus on improving quality of lives, not technology alone. The outcomes and benefits of the smart city projects should be shared. Citizens need to understand the benefits and outcomes of smart city implementations, engaged more and provide feedback into the new systems. Developing transparent collaborations, democratizing data and finding the creative ways of communication & marketing to engage with the citizens are the key to success.

Energy is ubiquitous and is required for virtually every modern critical function of national security. This panel will focus on the role of energy resilience on enabling military mission success.

The session will include a brief introduction to AI in the government sector and discuss the power of AI, particularly in performance management and in understanding resident satisfaction in the city. How can cities use data and AI to make better decisions for their residents? How can they integrate data into their work flow? The discussion will center on real use cases and success stories from Corona, California.

It is fiber first before 5G. Because of the nature of 5G, the difference in propagation of the networks that will be built on that 5G standard means having a low and tight design for the array of cell sites, small cells, DAS, as well as FTTH is resulting in new and densification of fiber plants as the foundation for supporting the architecture of the next-generation networks. Telecom is implementing automation everywhere to increase the speed of network deployment and simplify operations. Managing the complexity of the fiber plant is challenging when the faster network construction is needed, architectures varied, service levels more stringent, and asset visibility critical for NFV/SDN environments. This panel participation will present solutions for creating Human in the Loop (HitL) engineering processes getting from planning routes to generating permitting documents faster with automated technologies; using GIS and telecom features to visualize, analyze, and interpret network data; increasing efficiencies; adopting an end-to-end management solution throughout the enterprise; and creating a foundation for NFV/SDN with accurate physical plant data.

This moderated panel will explore and identify challenges and best practices presented by the participating cities. This session will be a moderated panel discussion focused on Community Engagement and Goverance.

The session will include a brief introduction of how the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) was awarded one of three national Connected Vehicle (CV) Pilots by the USDOT and will go into detail regarding how The Pilot created 6 use cases based on real life traffic issues implementing 11 CV applications including Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) , Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) and pedestrian interactions using THEA’s Reversible Express Lane (REL) and Tampa’s Central Business District (CBD) to make up the Pilot area. There are currently over 700 hundred private vehicles outfitted with the onboard units as well as 10 buses and 9 streetcars with 44 roadside units on the REL and in the CBD. This session will also demonstrate how THEA’s Pilot will provide data to the USDOT to assist in making policy decisions for the nation on CV technology.

SCIRA Guides and Playbooks breakout round robin workshop. Join the discussion as we help define guide an playbook details covering; smart lighting, mobility, smarthub wearable tech, community engagement, flood monitoring & response, air quality monitoring, and digital public health services

The NIST Global Cities Team Challenge SuperCluster on Data is facilitating meetings and collaboration among Cities, Industry Suppliers, NGOs, Universities and Community leaders. The panel on Key Market Opportunities Empowered by Data Exchange and Governance will discuss forces shaping economic impact in Smart Cities deployment efforts to prove sustainable economic viability, use-cases and facilities that make the evolution IoT and other technologies that serve City residents, businesses, NGOs, governments and stakeholders. Gain a better understanding of the scope and effort of the NIST’s DSC leadership team’s efforts to tackle the complexity of establishing Data-as-value. 100s of millions of sensors already collect metrology, from gas, water and electric meters, and show promise of economic value beyond usage charges, to machine learning enabled, grid-demand-response systems. The panel will present existing Data-exchange system and discuss how this extends the value of Smart City data. Additionally, City representatives will offer their insights based on experience. New use-cases are crucial to city leaders to uncover, and NIST’s GCTC program helps communities share those key learnings. Dr. Sokwoo Rhee will introduce the efforts of Global City Teams Challenge and its Data SuperCluster

Smart Lighting, i.e. solid state lighting and control network, can be much more than a service to citizens. The primary function of lighting is to provide safety for all of the road and sidewalk users, but recent studies have shown that the amount of lighting needed varies dramatically with time or night meaning there is potential energy savings potential with modern controls and solid state lighting. As cities convert to smart lighting, power capacity is freed up from the network enabling additional services and since the roadway lighting system is the only ubiquitous network that exists in cities it should be considered as the backbone for ICT and sensor networks. In addition to providing citizens with communication access points, that network can enable lighting-on-demand for vehicles and pedestrians, vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication and electrical vehicle charging points. Smart Lighting, therefore, needs to be an integral part of any smart city plan. Speakers to include: Cimcon Lighting, DimOnOff & PennSMART

In September 2015, the City of Grand Rapids was planning to spend $1.4M to update the City website. Department leaders understood this would not meet the needs of our citizens or the organization. The challenge was breaking past practice of updating technology without citizen engagement and understanding what our citizens needed as well as not understanding how our website was used. Citizens were accessing the City website to pay a bill or receive billing information at a staggering 86% of all visits. Customer experience, treasury, and technology had to come together to learn more about our citizens and ourselves in order to deliver the service our citizens expect. As City Treasurer, I was involved with this project beginning in September 2015. In January 2016, a team of 11 people (Executive, Treasury, 311 CS, Communications, and department leaders) began the journey to learn about our customers and technology. Results from year 1 are remarkable: Four services for the Grand Rapids citizens in one place with a single-sign-on resulting in 278% increase in automated payments, 82.4% increase in electronic revenue collection, and 11.5% reduction of walk-in traffic to pay for GR services.

Sault Ste. Marie has assembled an advanced energy and smart cities platform that demonstrates the potential for integrated, intelligent community solutions. A base for this platform is an integrated GIS solution shared by the City and utility that has won international awards for its comprehensive data set that includes over forty local organizations sharing data to improve community services. The region is quite unique with distributed renewable generation assets that produce over 247MW of wind, 60MW of solar and 203MW of hydro generation. This makes the community a net producer of renewable energy. Building off this unique energy foundation, advanced energy projects are now installed and underway in the community. A 7MW lithium-ion battery storage project was implemented in 2017 to increase the reliability and efficiency of the grid. Currently the utility, SSM PUC, is working with Infrastructure Energy to launch a Utility Distribution Microgrid known as ‘The Sault Microgrid’. The project will be a community-scale Microgrid and establish Sault Ste. Marie as a 'proof-of-concept' smart city that will be a model for other communities. The systems include an integrated communications network that leverages legacy networks, advanced metering infrastructure, distribution automation, and voltage/VAR optimization and management.

The Defense Innovation Technology Acceleration Challenges (DITAC) are designed to accelerate private-sector and defense-sourced technology solutions aligned with warfighter and national security problem-sets.

Learn from this diverse panel of startup and city leaders how hardware and software is helping cities bridge the gap between digital and physical worlds, and the implications this has on citizen experience and quality of life in cities.

This panel will explore key leadership factors required within cities and their partner networks to effectively innovate and successfully move projects from pilot stage to production scale. What really is a smart city, from addressing inclusivity and citizen engagement to reasoned application of new technology and funding sources, to infusing all departments within a city with a culture of innovation and empowerment. We will reveal how success is achieved by aligning the city’s internal ecosystem with the external ecosystem, and creating a city/urban strategy that is smart and creates economic value.

The Defense Innovation Technology Acceleration Challenges (DITAC) are designed to accelerate private-sector and defense-sourced technology solutions aligned with warfighter and national security problem-sets.