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Participate. Collaborate. Create.™
Thank you for attending
'Smart City Approaches: Making Austin Even Better'. 

Register below for the September event so you don't miss the next
Austin Forum!
Thank you to Mayor Steve Adler for his opening remarks and to the speakers Ron Baker of IBM, Lisa Barden of HubCiti, Mateo Clarke of OpenAustin, Greg Rucks of Rocky Mountain Institute, Karl Popham of Austin Energy, and Steve Sharpless of Hitachi Consulting for presenting their smart city projects and progressing the discussions. 

You may find the event slides here.
Mayor Adler kicked off the event with a challenge to Austin businesses, organizations, and residents to make Austin a smarter city. He explained the importance and the impact of building a team of people, business, and organizations to further the innovative projects that cultivate a smarter Austin. "We are the live music capital of the world, but we can also be the innovation center of the world," he said. Adler announced the newly formed Austin CityUP Consortium and introduced the members that have joined to date. 
Mateo Clarke began the lightning talks by sharing Open Austin's data project on affordable housing and permitting. The project uses mapping data like Spatial Austin to address issues such as where Austin's residential property values have increased and github to address permitting for demolition and construction trends. Clarke said, "A “Smart City” should: 1) publish property value data without fees 2) collect & publish accurate data for housing unit permits & demolitions."

Greg Rucks of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) spoke about smart city commuting such as electric and autonomous mobility services. He explained that the future is "mobility as a service that is electric and autonomous in cities designed for it."  Most cars today are "just in case":  they sit underutilized waiting in a garage or parking lot and are unused 95% of their life. RMI is working on better, smarter options that are tested and integrated into employers plans including electric fleets, environmental and regulatory-friendly infrastructure with advanced city planning. But this will take a disruptive, holistic paradigm shift in both the public and private sectors. 

Steve Sharpless of Hitachi Consulting explained their visualization platform designed to proactively support police officers and communities through video surveillance, 911 systems, gunshot detectors, and license plate recognition systems.  This real time data plays a key role in crime deterrence and emergency response to improve public safety while maintaining protection of first and fourth amendments to the Constitution. According to APD Assistant Chief, Troy Gay, “we’ve been able to reengineer our department into a data-driven and intel-based policing organization. The public safety camera project is designed to aid the city in deterring, detecting and investigating crimes.” 

 
Austin Energy's Emerging Technologies and Electric Vehicle (EV) Program Manager, Karl Popham shared his smart city EV strategy. The goals of the program are net-zero CO2 emissions for all City of Austin facilities, operations, and fleets by 2050 and 55% renewable energy by 2025. Using US Department of Energy grants, Austin Energy has already implemented smart projects like ChargePoint America- implementing Austin's first public charging stations for EVs and Central Texas Fuel Independence Project which provides a forum, outreach, and first responder training, jobs training program, and fleet analysis tool. Austin SHINES is the newest project which integrates distributed PV solar and energy storage at residential, commercial, and grid scale enabling smarter energy for high growth and demand.

Ron Baker, Chief Analytics Executive for the IBM Smarter Cities software portfolio, is working on a high-scale data lake to support global Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks through advanced insights, mobile applications, and geospatial expertise. This data lake blends public and private sector business models to offer new solutions to smart city challenges that are unique to each city with its own hyper local flow of people, places, events, and things including signals from traffic, weather, news, social media, etc. IBM is integrating all of this data to provide insights using statistical analysis and profiling tools that shape city management decisions and enable smarter planning and responsiveness. 
Integrating all of this smart city information and data gathering into one mobile application is the goal of HubCiti. Lisa Barden, software developer at Vizias, explained how she is helping HubCiti build 'All Austin', a mobile app which will launch later this year. Barden said, "there are a lot of specific apps for entertainment, traffic, health, etc, but a smart city app should collect data to improve city operations & services and promote active community engagement." Using data analytics technology, All Austin will use smartphone data to enable urban design and economic development/redevelopment.
Both residents and visitors can customize their user experience with preferences, neighborhoods, favorites, etc. Among many things, All Austin app data can determine which neighborhoods people commute out of more than others for jobs, healthcare, shopping, entertainment, etc which leads to smarter zoning to accomodate specific community and neighborhood needs like building sidewalks or community centers, for example.  

 

Participate. Collaborate. Create. 
 
Connect with the speakers:
Ron Baker  twitter | LinkedIn
Lisa Barden  twitter | LinkedIn
Mateo Clarke  twitter | LinkedIn
Greg Rucks  twitter | LinkedIn
Karl Popham  twitter | LinkedIn

Steve Sharpless  twitter | LinkedIn
 
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Congratulations to our lucky winners for correctly answering the SXSW Interactive trivia. Two people won a FREE badge to the 2017 festival! 

Join us next month for a chance to win one of two badges given away by Hugh Forrest of SXSW Interactive.

 
Join us in September at the Stateside Theater for
 
2016 is the year that virtual reality finally goes mainstream, with Facebook, Valve, and Sony officially entering the market with mass-market devices. VR is not only changing video games, but fundamentally changing the ways that we interact with computers, the Internet, and each other. This once-a-decade technology disruption is ushering in a new generation of products, services, and companies. Patrick discusses why VR fits the pattern of previous technology revolutions, drawing from his deep experience with emerging technology companies, as well as the work that’s left to be done to cement Austin’s role as a major hub of VR innovation, creativity, and prosperity.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Stateside Theater
719 Congress Ave.
Downtown Austin
Register
Special thanks to Newks for the fantastic catering.

Get all your Newk’s favorites delivered to your next birthday party, tailgate, office meeting or family reunion. Ivy and her team help you build the perfect spread, and they’ll even deliver and set up. All you have to do is relax and enjoy the food! So for your next catering event, just remember – they cater… you party!
Special thanks to WeTendBar for the bartending service!

The fabulous Greg and Verinda are the award winning team at WeTendBar and have just won the prestigious WeddingWire "Couples' Choice Awards® 2016" for Bartending in Austin.


Special thanks to Cerberus Security and to Musical Chairs for your exceptional services!
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