MetroLab Annual Summit 2023 Spotlights Sustaining Connected Communities
The MetroLab Network Annual Summit in Portland, OR highlighted Metro21's work on the NSF project, "Enabling and Sustaining Connected Communities Rooted in Solving Societal Challenges" in a roundtable discussion.
To better understand and address issues related to the integration and scaling of smart communities technologies, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Carnegie Mellon University’s Metro21: Smart Cities Institute (Metro21) to host a workshop entitled "Enabling and Sustaining Connected Communities Rooted in Solving Societal Challenges." The in-person workshop and pre-workshop virtual listening sessions were designed to elicit feedback and suggestions from experts in academia, government, nonprofits, civic organizations, and industry to identify solutions to the significant technical, policy, and socioeconomic challenges to integration and scaling of connected communities technologies. The findings include feedback from experts in the following domains: mobility/transportation, energy, climate resilience, ecosystem services and multiple applications. The resultant solutions and suggestions are summarized in a soon-to-be released report that will be the highlight of this roundtable discussion, where we’ll discuss the opportunities for collaboration.
Contributors to the discussion included:
- Rachel Berney, Ph.D., Associate Prof. Urban Design & Planning, & Faculty Director, Urban@UW at the Univ of Washington
- Tom Schenk, Managing Director, KPMG
- Santiago Garces, Chief Innovation Officer, City of Boston, MA