Metro21: Smart Cities Institute

Thank you for attending the Metro21: Smart Cities Institute launch event. We had a great time showcasing our projects, initiatives, and partnerships. With the addition of Mellon College, Deans from all seven colleges are now in Metro21’s Executive committee. We are officially a campus-wide multidisciplinary umbrella.

Metro21 Team from Left to Right: Rick Stafford - Distinguished Fellow, Karen Lightman - Executive Director, Stan Caldwell - Executive Director of Traffic21, and Raj Rajkumar - Director

We plan to continue partnering with our partners to further our mission to develop and deploy 21st century solutions to the challenges facing metropolitan regions. For those who missed the event, visit our Summary Blog Post to view the highlights and our event website includes videos of all the talks and panels, as well as links to download the presentations.

On April 19th, Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis and CMU President Farnam Jahanian signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow faculty and students from Metro21: Smart Cities Institute to research, develop and deploy several projects throughout the airport - creating an Aviation Innovation Laboratory.

The Memorandum of Understanding commits to expanding current research and education collaboration between the two parties. The MOU calls for the creation of an official liaison at each organization to facilitate communication and coordination on projects related to air service and travel. As part of the agreement, the Airport Authority will provide access to facilities, data, workspace, and staff resources, as needed. Both parties will pursue their mutual interests, leading the way in research and innovation.

See full press coverage at our website.

Our Fire Risk Analysis project, led by Computer Science Ph.D. student Michael Madaio has been getting great press attention. Featured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, KDKA, WPXI, and 90.5 WESA, the project used predictive analytics to provide Pittsburgh residents with better city services.

Madaio built a predictive model that determines fire risk in the city’s commercial buildings, which the Fire Bureau has used to help inform its inspections since last year. In the project's first six months, beginning in July 2017, the model identified 57 properties with a high-risk of fire. Of that number 50 of the properties (or 88%) indeed experienced fire incidents.

This is just one example of the work Metro21 is supporting and deploying across the city. Check out our full list of projects here.

We’re celebrating the launch of our monthly podcast! The first episode features NYU Professor Neil Kleiman. He visited Carnegie Mellon University in a Metro21 hosted discussion around his new book, A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance.

Before the presentation, he sat down with Executive Director Karen Lightman to discuss the innovations coming from Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh, what policy schools can do to adjust to the shifting needs of networked governance, and how data can serve more purposes than analysis.

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