Oct 21 2019

Colleges Make Ideal Partners for Smart City Initiatives

Local governments and higher education institutions provide similar services to their communities, including parking, transportation, public safety, facilities management and wayfinding aids. That's one reason that cities and colleges are partnering to develop and test smart city technologies — networking, Internet of Things devices and data analytics — that make these services safer and more efficient. From driverless shuttles to innovative accessibility services, initiatives like the Digital City Testbed Center at Portland State University offer a window into a new future — on campus and off.  

Participants

    • William Garrick, Research Computing Manager and Architect, Portland State University

Video Highlights

  • Testing smart city technologies in the controlled sandbox environment of higher education lets researchers figure out which innovations make the most sense before scaling them out.
  • Traffic monitoring to improve public safety, voice-activated informational devices and accessibility services for sight-impaired individuals are a few of the Internet of Things innovations that smart city researchers are testing.
  • An expansion of IoT devices creates exciting opportunities, but also significant information security challenges, raising questions about data storage, protection and access.