Portland hosts cities from around the world in Smart City conference

Source: Portland Business Journal on January 30, 2017 | Skip Newberry

A little over two years ago, the National Institute of Standards and Technology launched the Global City Teams Challenge as an initiative to spur innovation in Internet-of-Things and smart cities. The City of Portland took part with a handful of early partners including Intel, Portland State University and the Technology Association of Oregon.

This week, Portland will host an important event in the next phase of the challenge, in which cities from around the world will come together to collaborate across several policy areas ranging from transportation to energy. More than 20 cities will be sending officials to the conference, including:

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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Ancona, Italy
Beaverton
Bellevue, Wash.
Centennial, Colo.
Columbus, Ohio ( which won the $40M U.S. Department of Transportation Smart City Challenge)
Daegu City, South Korea
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Galle, Sri Lanka
Greenville, S.C.
Los Angeles

Workshops will be held over a day-and-half where officials from each of the participating cities will discuss projects related to first-mile-last-mile solutions, sensor technologies, urban freight, smart city software development kits, transportation modeling, regulation and policy and opportunities for city-university-private partnerships. By the conclusion of the workshops, participating cities will also identify areas of collaboration that will occur over the coming months.

The discussion and any outcomes from the conference will be collected into a report in the next couple of months that will be shared by NIST with federal officials at multiple agencies with the goal of informing new funding initiatives and challenges. The report will contribute to an emerging federal strategy linking together resources across agencies.

A smart city product showcase on Feb. 1 will feature a mix of startups, small and large tech companies, including Intel, Cisco, Apis, CIVIQ Smartscapes, Studio Transcendent, DKS Associates, iSoftStone, Moonshadow Mobile and Metro.

The next day there will be an autonomous and electric vehicle showcase in the West Parking Garage at the Rose Quarter. If you want to check out some of the latest electric and autonomous vehicle solutions by 5D Robotics, MC Electric, Mobility Cubed/Pangea, Arcimoto, Meridian Autonomous Vehicles, and ReachNow, please feel free to stop by.