Smart Cities, Smart Buildings

FountainBlue’s December 11 VIP roundtable : ‘Smart Cities, Smart Buildings’

FountainBlue’s December 11 VIP roundtable was on the topic of ‘Smart Cities, Smart Buildings’, conducted online with introductory remarks provided by our host company at Amazon. Below are notes from the conversation.

Today’s participating executives represented a wide breadth of industries and roles, across the spectrum of technology – from semiconductors to fabs to end consumers. Each brought an interesting perspective about the opportunities for smart buildings and smart cities.  

We launched the discussion talking about the technology innovation explosion around semiconductors, networking, storage, software (AI, Advanced AI, ML) which facilitates the adoption of Smart Building/Smart City solutions. The pandemic and its implications are also accelerating the development and adoption of technology.  

• Whether it’s on the edge, in the fog or in the cloud, it’s always about the data. But we need to make sure that data is relevant, timely, filtered, and targeted in its delivery in order to provide maximum benefit for all stakeholders, with actionable recommendations based on pre-defined requirements and parameters.
• Balancing privacy, security and access remains of paramount concern. Individuals, cities, countries, companies will differ in terms of their sensitivity levels and options for managing these elements, but each entity must take these factors into account.
• Whereas we may have many ‘Smart Building’ use cases now, to help us manage our day-to-day activities at home for example, we are farther away from the management of ‘Smart Cities‘ as this would take coordinated infrastructure development and collaboration. This might be easier in China, where there might be mandates and requirements, but in Western countries where many parties get a vote, it’s a much greater challenge. 

Below is a compilation of best practices to ensure sustainable implementation and execution of Smart Building initiatives.

• Minimize latency issues so that selected users can efficiently receive not just the data, but the recommended actions based on the data received.
• Focus on the most relevant use case, and solve that specific problem, which can be expanded to solve other problems.
• Focus on the short term wins around Smart Buildings, then expand to other use cases which leverage the same technology, but outside the home, or at work. 
• Focus on the long term play around Smart Cities, but build standards and collaboration to ensure the coordinated implementation of solutions.
• Create model solutions including model cities and intersections to test solutions and technologies and their relevance and effectively for individual types of users. 
• Develop integrated solutions to help employees better manage their logistics and planning around meetings and development or operations.
• Create Smart Home/Smart City solutions which focus on the goals of safety, efficiency and quality of life, while conserving energy and optimizing performance.
• Take advantage of smart building solutions which speak to current pandemic-related challenges including robotic automation for warehouses, disinfection management which keeps humans safe, commercial deep cleaning.

We ended the roundtable with some key open-ended questions:

• What are the opportunities around the challenges posed by 2020 – the year of the pandemic and the myriad of resulting implications?
• What are the long-game solutions around Smart Buildings/Smart Cities which take minimal investment dollars, so that we can prove value/warrant investment?

Please join me in thanking our hosts at Amazon, and our participating executives. 

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