Austin is playing host to the "Smart Cities Innovation Summit" this week, a gathering of primarily city IT specialists and companies such as Intel and AT&T.
We attended a "fireside chat" on Tuesday morning hosted by Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle and with some heavy-hitter experts on Smart Cities technology, including:
- Scott Danner, the senior director of Smart Cities for AT&T
- Amr Salem, the global managgin director for Smart Cities and Internet of Everything for Cisco Systems
- Tom Bradicich, the vide president and general manager of servers and IoT Systems for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
- Khalil Shalabi, the vice president of energy market operations and resource planning for Austin Energy.
Their wide-ranging conversation covered the challenges cities face when trying to implement "smart" solutions and the infrastructure needed to have self-driving cars.
The executives started out by explaining their role in the "Internet of Things," a tech industry term for non-computing devices connected to the Internet.
Bradicich, with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, sought to clarify a few things about the term increasingly nebulous term "Internet of Things."
The conversation shifted to what cities should be doing to prepare for the hyper-connected world of IoT.
Salem, from Cisco Systems, had some particularly interesting insights into how city bureaucracies pose challenges when it comes to sharing data.
The conversation wandered into the popular topic of privacy. As we start gathering more data through these smart devices, how do we also protect the right to privacy?
The biggest hurdle for most cities when it comes to building IoT-ready infrastructure is transportation. The panelists discussed what needs to happen in the next few years.
It's fun to talk about how all this new technology can change our lives and rid us of all our traffic woes.
But if you're like me, you're wondering how a city like Austin is going to pay for all these upgrades when it can't even stay on top of existing low-tech issues, such as potholes and drainage issues.
If you're interested in some of the other discussions surrounding the Smart Cities Innovation Summit, check out the Twitter hashtag #smartcities.
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