2. Identify Your City’s Smart City Challenges
Kenya Asli, smart cities strategist for the city of Baltimore, said it is important for smart city leaders to assess where they are now in terms of their technology journey and challenges, and then “think through your city’s needs.”
In 2018, Baltimore released its first-ever strategic plan for IT modernization, which included plans to create a smart city council to focus on smart city strategy, partnerships, opportunities and coordination.
Knowing that Baltimore would need to partner with vendors, Asli said the city has created a challenge document organized by community, infrastructure and operations. She said that Baltimore has made it clear that technology solutions they present need to help the city meet its specific challenges.
Some of the best partnerships with technology providers have involved private sector companies saying, “Let me just lend you my expertise on this particular thing, and then later we can maybe talk about a contract,” Asli said.
MORE FROM STATETECH: See how edge computing helps smart cities with data collection and processing.
3. Identify and Prioritize the Smart City’s Needs
Charlie Nobles, vice president of sales for the utility segment at smart city Internet of Things company Ubicquia, said it’s important for city leaders to focus on their desired outcomes and then think through how technology can help get them there.
Often, he said, strategic needs lists from cities are like Christmas gift lists. “On one end you have a slingshot, on the other end you have a pony,” he said, adding that all smart city needs cannot be achieved by a single technology solution.
IoT solution providers and other vendors should help cities prioritize and characterize their needs as soon as possible, he suggested. City leaders need to create a framework that helps them determine what the most pressing needs are. Ultimately, he said, the solution “should not start with the technology,” but with the need.
Read more articles from StateTech’s coverage of the Smart Cities Connect 2019 conference.