Smart city concepts have been around since at least 2012, building on emerging sensor and wireless technologies alongside big data to reduce traffic congestion, improve water and air quality, add efficient lighting systems and enhance public safety.
Back then, professionals started using the title of Chief Innovation Officer to describe a relatively new role of a technologically savvy individual with a knowledge of governance and of business. It helped to be someone willing to weave through the political landscape in every city and developing county between citizens on the one hand who distrust technology and those with a mechanical mindset in the public works department or the traffic engineers who prize the holy grail of critical lane volume (CLV) metrics.
And, it means keeping a straight face when the endless public hearings drag on or when a tech vendor shows up with a set of hot new slideware about the next-generation thing.
“There is rising distrust in technology. Sixty percent of people in surveys say tech is moving too fast,” said David Graham, chief innovation officer for the city of Carlsbad, California. He spoke in a virtual panel discussion hosted by Cisco on Thursday.
“Government can’t appropriately address the rapid rise in technology. You can get dragged down if you haven’t started to lay trust within the community,” Graham added.
Success in a smart city “has nothing to do with technology and has to do with people. We need to invite the public into co-creating these experiences with high degree of civic engagement,” he said. Cities need to be “engaged with the public around connecting communities.”
Graham has worked in his current position for just over two years after co-chairing a civic innovation certification program at Harvard University and spending seven years as deputy chief operating officer at the nearby city of San Diego. He’s obviously sat through many public hearings for the city of 110,000 residents but also knows that technology can make things better, even if the public is dubious.
In the city directory, he is also identified as the director economic development and innovation, which shows how chief innovation officers in many cities divide their time and duties between champion and researcher.
Graham said the city’s efforts to engage the community with a connected Carlsbad approach have relied on data driven decision-making and fostering a civic culture to get the community involved in everything from traffic issues to high-speed internet connectivity. “All of that was fundamental. You get buy-in from leadership, elected and public guideposts, but if you don’t have a viable secure infrastructure, you can’t do any of that stuff,” he said.
In Carlsbad’s case, it helped to have a long-term relationship with Cisco. Starting two years ago, Cisco helped work with a third-party provider that had already laid cable to 90% of the city. With a city investment of $4.5 million, Carlsbad has built out the remainder of the fiber core and equipment to boost internet speeds from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps. Without the installed fiber and Cisco’s involvement, the city might have been forced to spend up to $15 million, Graham said.
“That’s incredibly inexpensive for a citywide network,” he said. “That’s millions of of dollars in savings in the near term and the capacity to take on any new technologies we want because we have a network that’s easily scalable.” The city foresees the core network supporting the water utility to provide more secure and reliable control and enabling AI to optimize traffic, among other goals.
Cisco’s John Chapman, CTO of Broadband Technologies, said the main challenge for the networking provider in cities to “connect everybody but do it on networks that have been built separately.” That’s a job of connecting Wi-Fi, 5G, cable and fiber and “get to every single device and connect them up.”
Graham described the task in Carlsbad with Cisco’s help another way: “To replace Frankenstein, we have built out the core network.”
The irony, of course, behind Graham’s enthusiasm for working with Cisco is that the networking giant has recently pulled back from a years-long corporate smart city push, at least by stopping sales and eventually support for the Cisco Kinetic for City software services line, according to a company statement provided to the Wall Street Journal in late December.
A bigger irony is that just days before Cisco confirmed it had backed off Kinetic, chipmaker Qualcomm’s smart cities czar announced an IoT Services Suite to aid the digital transformation of cities, schools, logistics, construction management and healthcare.
RELATED: Qualcomm launches IoT services for logistics, construction, education and healthcare
However, it is clear from the Cisco website that Cisco is not that far removed from offering smart city technologies and services. A Jan. 8 posting by Vikas Butaney, general manager of IoT, noted that Cisco is among the pioneers of the smart city concept and noted, “As the needs of cities evolve, we continually reevaluate and transform our product portfolio to meet their needs.” He noted the acquisition of Fluidmesh for rail and port system connectivity and the progression of Cisco Cyber Vision for infrastructure such as water systems.
Butaney also confirmed in his post the phase out of Kinetic over the next few years, adding that Cisco would work with cities to “securely connect what’s now and what’s next to power an inclusive future for all.” He also ticked off projects to accelerate digital in 37 countries and connected transportation systems like in Madrid.
As Graham said about the Frankenstein monster in Carlsbad, it appears Cisco itself is getting smarter and coming to life in a different form.