Enabling the Implementation of Integrated and Scalable Smart Cities
Less than ten years ago, the promise of smart cities seemed endless and ripe with opportunity to improve citizen quality of life through application of technologies such as cameras and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors with a layer of artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline and optimize operations and outcomes. Since that time, the shine has worn off. Projects often do not go past the pilot stage, are application and context specific, are not implemented at scale, do not explicitly integrate community input during design, planning or operation, and largely consist of isolated platforms or systems of operation without integration. To address these issues, we will hold a workshop focusing on the significant technical, policy and socioeconomic challenges with respect to the integration and scalability of smart city technologies, approaches and/or deployments in real-world settings. Current barriers to integration and/or scaling of the above are likely also related to current policy/regulations, financing, and workforce gaps and as such, they will be considered to inform the research agenda. The workshop will discuss potential solutions to the scalability and integration challenges to help guide future NSF investments in smart cities deployments.
Before the workshop is held, we will convene a series of virtual panels with diverse stakeholders from around the United States, including rural, urban and suburban perspectives, to better inform our understanding of the aforementioned challenges. We will use these sessions to develop a set of research questions which will be refined in an in-person (invite-only) workshop where we will discuss potential solutions to the scalability and integration challenges (technical and non-technical) to help guide future NSF investments in smart cities deployments. This workshop will foster convergence by engaging participants from academia, government, non-profits, community advocacy, private property owners and developers, civic agencies, and industry, across a range of smart city applications relative to different infrastructure systems. For each of these application areas (such as energy, transportation, water, etc.), we will bring together expertise from engineering, public policy, computer science, and social and decision science, as well as direct input from community leaders and partners. The main intellectual merit of this workshop will be the development of a summary report outlining a multi-disciplinary research agenda (gaps, questions, and proposed research tasks) to overcome the scalability and integration challenges identified throughout the multi-stakeholder discussions.
Learn more about this project and the virtual panels here.