Smart Cities of the Future - Leveraging Data to Improve the Quality of Life for All Citizens Featuring Brian Chidester

Welcome Back to Bill Murphy’s 10x Podcast. Our guest in this episode is Brian Chidester, award-winning, public sector marketing executive, and expert integrated messaging strategist. Brian is currently the Industry Vice President at Genesys, an Advisor to the G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance, and a member of the Forbes Technology Council.

Today, Brian shares with listeners the benefits of developing smart cities and explains how they promote sustainable practices that will address growing urbanization challenges that cities face. By leveraging the data that smart cities provide, stewards within a community can help make better decisions on behalf of the constituents.

As a supporter of smart city evolution, Brian shares examples to describe how process efficiency, edge computing, and curb management can help advocate for the future and advancements of smart cities.

Tune in today and learn about the possibilities smart cities are providing our communities.

As a CIO and Business IT Leader here are some wins you will get by listening:

[5:30] Brian: To be a true advisor to sales leadership, you must have a deep understanding of the market and the reason behind what you are doing.
[7:00] Brian: Anyone working in the technology sector begins to realize that everything is interconnected.
[8:00] Brian: When looking at the government space, it pulls you into an experience. The experience can be a digital experience through your mobile device, tablet, or computer, but it also evolves into smart cities.
[9:00] Brian: A smart city is a framework, an idea, that is composed of information communications technology (ICT).
[9:40] Brian: The idea behind smart cities is to develop and promote sustainable practices that help address growing and advancing urbanization challenges that cities face.
[9:55] Brian: A foundational piece of a smart city is cloud. Cloud-based IoT applications and sensors can receive, analyze, and manage data in real time to help improve the quality of life for citizens living in a city or connected community.
[10:30] Brian: The most important piece that comes from the cloud based IoT applications is the data. The data provides insights so that stewards within the community can make better decisions on behalf of the constituents.
[11:30] Brian: London pioneered the initial smart city.
[12:55] Brian: Smaller cities have the greatest innovation despite having a smaller budget because they do not have to go through policy roadblocks that stand in the way of bigger cities.
[13:50] Brian: For example, when it comes to trash removal, technology is not added to help get the trash out faster but to understand where the process slows down. Therefore, technology is used for process efficiency.
[14:35] Brian: In Buffalo, NY the city turned trash removal trucks into moving sensors by adding video cameras, leveraging AI (Artificial Intelligence), and using 5G capabilities to find potholes that need to be filled.
[15:25] Brian: Edge computing is the ability to process data at the point. An example of this is a sensor.
[16:00] Brian: Edge computing and 5G from an infrastructure perspective can allow quick reaction times to help the evolution of smart cities.
[17:00] Brian: The concerns surrounding 5G are the pockets of the broadband infrastructure. Smart cities can help with digital equity, but one of the biggest challenges is access to broadband.
[19:10] Brian: GDPR and the Europeans are ahead of the US when it comes to privacy practices and policies.
[20:14] Brian: Security of data is critical for protecting privacy. With new video footage capabilities such as speed cameras or security cameras, we must ensure this information does not fall into the wrong hands.
[21:30] Brian: Policy is always lagging behind technology. That is why the government tends to be late adopters of technology.
[24:30] Brian: There is a lot of value that data can bring to the citizen.
[24:38] Curb management is a big trend happening with smart cities because of curb real estate. The data surrounding curb management can help cities identify how to manage and optimize curb space to allow for curb demands. An example of this is DoorDash pickups and drop offs.
[26:04] Brian: A big topic that’s being looked at within smart cities is how to help address climate change. How can we lower the city’s carbon footprint by leveraging smart devices?
[29:07] Brian: The City of Chattanooga is looking at how they can prevent car accidents and pedestrian deaths by having a sensor speak to a vehicle which then stops it when the car gets close to a crosswalk.
[29:53] Brian: When we think of smart cities, it’s an ecosystem. It’s not just about a device here and there. It’s a framework and policies, but it is also a complete ecosystem that plays together.
[30:05] Brian: Look to the Googles and the Apples of the world that have next generation technology and understand what that is, where it’s going, and how it can be enveloped properly into the smart city ecosystem.
[33:05] Brian: What does the future of smart cities look like? It starts with the data. Then, it’s what the city’s going to do on behalf of its citizens. It’s not about technologies and sensors, but it’s about how the cities can become smarter from the data that’s ingested to be more prescriptive for their citizens.
[33:53] Brian: How will the metaverse impact smart cities and digital experiences for citizens? Both augmented reality and virtual reality are giving governments opportunities to be able to meet the next generation of citizens.
[38:00] Brian: The goal of smart cities is to provide citizens with the types of technology and the types of services that are needed within their area. You’re not beholden to just what you’ve had in the past.
[41:48] Brian: It’s not just about getting technology into the hands of the community. It’s understanding how to best use and push the adoption of this technology and do it in a way that’s going to drive the type of outcomes they are looking for.