As Kansas City continues to grow, the concept of a "smart city" is becoming important to talent and companies moving to the metro.
Aaron Deacon, managing director at KC Digital Drive explains what KC needs to become a digital leader.
Part of becoming a 'smart city' centers around the streetcar project. Along with its launch in a few short months is the $15.3 million Cisco project with sensors along the route.
"There will be other sensors that you don't necessarily see but can measure things like how much snow has fallen on the ground," said Deacon. "And knowing that, you can know how to deploy your snow plows and other responses."
That’s one component of being a smart city.
"The second component is the fiber, the connectivity, and the wireless that makes all those things and devices and sensors be able to talk to each other and the third is a city that is interested in taking advantage of all the data," said Deacon.
Deacon admits reaction is mixed.
“There’s some people that don’t know what it is," said Deacon. "Some people that are excited and get it are trying to figure how to make use of it. There’s some people that don’t care much one way or the other, honestly. And that’s part of the challenge. This technology is coming. It's going to happen. It's going to happen every place, and so you can either sort of figure how to lead, be intentional in how to adopt it or sit there and wait for it to happen."
IEEE, an international engineering organization, is holding its workshop this week to gather engineering resources for the purpose of building these kind of cities.
The group picked five core cities around the world to represent these emerging tech hubs. Kansas City is the only U.S. city to be represented.
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Jane Monreal can be reached at jane.monreal@kshb.com.
