Verizon Wireless along with Alcatel Lucent and IDC will be discussing Smart City initiatives on a webinar http://bit.ly/SmartCityWebinar today. Giving a preview without stealing their thunder is hard, but let me talk about some of the key aspects.
Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, Research Director, Smart Cities Strategies, IDC, sets the stage that while we talk about billions and billions of devices, when you look at how devices and are connected and how many government initiatives are in process, we at the early stage of adoption.
Infrastructure investments have been stalled for some time due to economic pressures to reduce taxes and maintain existing services. What often gets missed is, the impact of IoT in government services can reduce operational costs while expanding the services available to citizens.
Dan Feldman, Director, IoT Smart Cities, Verizon, does a good job of showing some of the services that improve the experience for the citizenry, while helping the government maintain the services already in existence.
A Smart City ecosystem is a complex mixture of public and private organizations gathering information and making it possible for the intelligence to be used effectively by government and the public at large. This means a platform that is independent of specific jurisdictional problems from a trusted third party is a great common receptacle.
Mike Varkas, Area VP, Strategic Industry Solutions supporting Verizon, ALU, brings that point home. Enabling complex systems requires a team and resources that are tasked to specific work initiatives.
According to the Web, Aristotle said “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” and I have to say that at the end of this presentation, seeing the city as a smart ecosystem will definitely be better seen as a whole than the sum of its parts.
I often see my mayor at functions and our chats are usually cordial and light about kids and goings on about the city. The next time I see her, I intend to ask her to watch this webinar. As part of your whole community, perhaps you should do the same.
Edited by
Ken Briodagh
