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Inaugural Smart Cities Week fuels strong debate and high turnout

22 September 2015

by Tom Teodorczuk

Government officials, mayors and business leaders were among the thousand attendees to gather in Washington D.C. for Smart Cities Week, the first event of its kind in North America.

The event, developed by the Smart Cities Council, showcased best practices and solutions for cities to make their communities more livable and sustainable. Held at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington D.C., Smart Cities Week offered keynote speakers, panel discussions and demonstrations of integrated technologies designed to help municipalities become more economically viable and safer.

Keynote speakers included Julian Castro, the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, former Transport Secretary Ray LaHood and Cathy Lanier, Chief of Police, Washington, D.C. The event also attracted a strong global presence with speakers ranging from Miranda Sharp, Head of Smart Cities Practice at the Ordnance Survey to Ibrahim Al Zu’bi, a sustainability adviser to the government of Dubai.

Mr Castro said, “Cities are the incubators of bold ideas.” But he added the expansion of community inclusion and access to opportunity is an “economic imperative…. all citizens of cities– no matter their income or zip code– have a fair shot to pursue their dreams.”

Among the 1,000 attendees to have been impressed with Smart Cities Week was Brandon Davito, Vice President of Smart Lighting and Cities at Silver Spring Networks, a networking technologies industry leader based in Redwood, California. He told Cities Today: “Smart Cities Week was a great event bringing together technologists, vendors, industry leaders and cities themselves to think about both how can city services be improved and how technology can aid that effort.

“It showed both the potential of smart city technologies and the complexities inherent within making the technologies a reality. What particularly interested me was seeing how mayors have used Smart City initiatives to change the competitive landscape and economic fortunes of communities.”

Mayors speaking at Smart Cities Week included Jon Mitchell, mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Bonnie Crombie, mayor of Mississauga in Ontario, Canada. Leading corporations who exhibited at the event included Siemens, GE Lighting, IBM, Bechtel, Lyft and Cubic Transportation Systems.

Panels ranged in subject from the Olympic Games to open data. More than one attendee highlighted the diversity and plurality of views on display at the event.

Walker Kimball, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Infrastructure in the Americas Region for Bechtel, a Council Lead Partner, stressed people need more data to make more informed environmental choices, saying, “Most of us want to be green consumers, but we just don’t have the data to make that possible.” But Andrew Buss, Chief Innovation Officer in Philadelphia told delegates: “Change has to come from government. Any outside solution is just a workaround.”

Sources told Cities Today that a review is underway to determine whether Smart Cities Week will now be an annual autumn occurrence in North America.

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