The Smart Cities Now forum held at Qualcomm headquarters in San Diego in December 2014 was the subject of an extensive news piece by Chad Vanderveen writing for FutureStructure. A brief excerpt appears below; you can read his full story here.
The event boasted a stellar cast of public and private sector leaders who had assembled to engage in ongoing dialogue about continuing the transformation of the world’s cities. Speakers included former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and recently-elected San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer.
The theme of the event was a practical approach to establishing the principles and practices of smart cities. While differing definitions of what, exactly, makes a city smart were espoused, a general agreement was seemingly reached – specifically smart cities are those that recognize the value of the data a city generates (or can be made to generate) and using that data to make actionable decisions.
“Just putting sensors out there and collecting data isn’t the big win,” said Peter Sweatman of the ITSA. “The big win is using real-time data at the edge to solve a specific problem.”
