Connected Urban Development

We had the exciting opportunity to present the perspectives from Connected Urban Development, Cisco and partner cities at the recent Comparative Genetics of Cities conference hosted at University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

 Arizona State, UCL and Newcastle University hosted the conference to explore key problems of energy, climate, land use and transportation in large cities, using London and Phoenix as exemplars.

The presentations from the conference, comparative datasets from London and Phoenix, and many academic, business, city planning and NGO led initiatives were presented and can be accessed on the website: http://cssa.asu.edu/ucl_may2010

The Connected Urban Development presentation ‘a new approach to urban innovation’, sets out the networked and web based tools for urban citizen engagement and sustainable outcomes which we are advancing across multiple projects in cities across the world.

The lead project we are advancing towards this aim is the Urban EcoMap project. The aim is to develop the platform to compare cities through a wide range of data sources, to enable citizens, business’ and city managers amongst others to understand their community and to enable decisions to be made on an informed basis. Related projects from the Cisco team, in common with the Urban EcoMap include the Planetary Skin Institute, as described in the presentation. Extending the Urban EcoMap proof of concept application, with the cities of Amsterdam and San Francisco, to many different directions, from sustainability, economic, social and livability objectives is an exciting path which we are advancing towards.

The next step in this path will be a showcase session for delegates joining us in Shanghai at the Partnership for Urban Innovation Global Conference. As part of one of the groups visits to the Cisco pavilion at the World Expo on the 18th June, we will present the latest progress towards revealing the layers of the city, enabling decision spaces and assimilating the wide range of data that is emerging through the open data movement, and moves towards sensing the city from municipal, crowdsourced and trusted proxy sources.

Cisco and the city of Amsterdam today announced the rollout of Urban EcoMap, an Internet-based tool that enables cities around the world to provide smarter climate change information for their citizens. A city can use Urban EcoMap to create awareness among its residents of the impact of carbon emissions on their urban environment. It provides information on carbon emissions from transportation, energy and waste among neighborhoods, organized by district, and delivers tips on ways to reduce a resident’s carbon footprint.

• The application is an extension of the Urban EcoMap launched in May 2009 in the city of San Francisco. The Amsterdam version of the Urban EcoMap will be progressively expanded over the next six months with real-time information that is linked to data from other agencies.

• Urban EcoMap provides information on carbon emissions from transportation, energy and waste among neighborhoods, organized by district. As part of the Cisco® Connected Urban Development (CUD) program, the Urban EcoMap pilot is a cooperative initiative between the city of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM) and Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), the company’s strategic global consulting arm.
• The application now enables comparisons between the two cities of Amsterdam and San Francisco, on an aggregated residential per capita CO2 basis, and proportionally by the categories of Transportation, Energy and Waste.

Join us in the drive towards reducing our individual CO2 emissions to 2 tonnes by 2050, across the world.

This is the next step in the development of the application. Let us know your thoughts and ideas on how the application can develop and continue to innovate and scale globally.

A number of the technology pilots, which the seven Connected Urban Development cities have been developing, will be presented at the third Connected Urban Development global conference on May 21-22, 2009.

The conference, in Seoul, South Korea will see the launch to the citizens of the city, of the Personal Travel Assistant (PTA) application. ‘Seoul PTA’ is a web-based service providing the following facilities; Personal Travel Planner, Carbon Calculator, Real-Time Router, Transportation Information Service.

Initially, Seoul PTA will serve the Jung-gu and Jongno-gu districts of Seoul; citywide coverage will roll out later in the year.

In addition, the Urban EcoMap application, previewed on EarthDay will be launched to the citizens of San Francisco. During the two days of the conference, further connected and sustainable mobility and smart work solutions will be discussed with delegates, such as the Smart Transportation Pricing pilot in the city of Seoul, the development of Amsterdam PTA, and the scaling of the Smart Work Center concept globally.

Great progress has been made in these programs and in the areas of Energy and Buildings. Providing informed, and control enabled applications to the home, buildings, and integrated into the energy grid provides great opportunities for connect and sustainable living for citizens and businesses in cities.

The city of Madrid will present the latest progress in the implementation of the ‘Urban Energy Management’ pilot for homes, and residential communities.

In the city of Lisbon, the ‘Smart UrbanEnergy for Schools’ pilot provides an innovative perspective on Energy management in municipally owned buildings, with two way integration with the energy grid. This pilot also has an educational aspect for students to learn about sustainable living, enabled by technology.

With the PTA application, the Urban EcoMap, and the energy applications, the CUD community is progressing towards an integrated urban services platform for connected and sustainable cities. These pilots, and many other projects and perspectives from other leading global cities, expert urban planners, business, and academic thought leaders will be presented and debated at the conference.

A commentary of the proceedings and highlights will follow during and after the event here on this blog.

Shane Mitchell

During EarthDay, the Urban EcoMap provided a number of commentaries, from Cisco, the City and County of San Francisco, citizens of the city, and other media outlets:

Quotes:

“Urban EcoMap in San Francisco provides residents, businesses and our city as a whole with much-needed tools to reduce our carbon footprint. With our city’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2012, we are pleased - and think it’s apropos - that Cisco selected San Francisco as the first city in the world to launch Urban EcoMap.” - Gavin Newsom, Mayor, City and County of San Francisco

“Because cities produce 80 percent of GHG emissions worldwide, they present the largest opportunity for innovation and social behavior changes. Citizens want to see the collective results of their individual climate-change actions.” - Simon Willis, vice president, global public sector, Cisco IBSG

Feature articles:

Zapping Greenhouse Gases, One Zip Code at a Time

The Environmentally Conscious City by the Bay

Video Blogs: by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Nicola Villa from Cisco IBSG.

Return to www.urbanecomap.org on the 21st May. In the lead in to then, join the online discussion there, on Twitter, Facebook and The Connected Republic.

In addition, the following media commented on the EcoMap during the day;

22nd April 2009,

Cisco Launches Carbon Emissions Map, First In San Francisco Earth2Tech

Web site to track SF green neighborhoods ABC News

Cisco, San Francisco launch Urban EcoMap San Jose Business Journal

Cisco’s “EcoMap” To Give San Franciscans Carbon Footprint Bragging Rights, Guilt Trips GreenTechMedia

 Net tool tracks carbon footprint by ZIP code San Francisco Chronicle

Cities create 80% of global carbon emissions. As we move from educating people about climate change to taking action to mitigate climate impacts, we need innovation to help spur a shift to climate-friendly social behavior in cities. Urban EcoMap helps address this objective. Begun in fall 2008, this pilot project is a collaborative effort involving Cisco and the City and County of San Francisco.

San Francisco is the first city worldwide to introduce the Urban EcoMap. On Earth Day 2009 (22 April), Mayor Gavin Newsom launched the Urban EcoMap pilot in San Francisco. The web-based tool will will be made available to the general public at the Connected Urban Development conference in Seoul, 21st May 2009.

Please view the demonstration of the Urban EcoMap San Francisco at www.urbanecomap.org. The conversation will continue on the website blog, twitter, and facebook. Return there for the latest information as the public go-live day for the web-based Urban EcoMap approaches.

The visual preview is also included here in the program page of the Connected Urban Development community website. Go to: http://www.connectedurbandevelopment.org/connected_and_sustainable_ict_infrastructure/eco_map

Shane Mitchell

At the last Connected Urban Development conference in Amsterdam, the city of San Francisco and Cisco presented the concept and prototype for the EcoMap, a geo-mapping based, collaboration, visualization and measurement tool for citizens, businesses and the city authorities to measure their carbon emissions and to see the collective results of their individual climate change behaviors.

As the next phase development progresses towards a working proof of concept, a video demo has been developed to set out the scope, features and functionality of the EcoMap in San Francsico.

Underlying the imperative to deliver this innovative visualization tool is to inform citizens and enable positive, community driven decision making to address cities carbon reduction targets, the global climate change challenge, and even more importantly, citizens informed and sustainable lives in urban environments.

The latest content on the EcoMap, and the video demo are on this website at; http://www.connectedurbandevelopment.org/connected_and_sustainable_ict_infrastructure/eco_map

Please refer to this website for the latest developments as the prototype of the EcoMap moves to an operational launch later in 2009.

Shane Mitchell