Show&Tell: Smart Cities
Attendees examine new connected device technology at Show&Tell
Show&Tell is Tech Square's quarterly science fair-style demo day which focuses on a different emerging technology each time. Researchers, startups, students, and corporate innovation teams showcase their experiments on the main floor of The Garage. In the middle of it all, three experts take the stage to give a five-minute Fast Forward talk about how a featured technology will impact our lives three to five years from now.
The latest Show&Tell focused on Smart Cities. Listen in to the full recording here, and follow along with each presenter's SlideShare presentation below.
The Fast Forward talks opened with Vincent Haines, an engineer at Honeywell.
Vincent Haines hopes to improve conditions for everyone living in cities in the next few decades.
"54 percent of the world's population currently live in cities," said Haines, "and by 2050, an additional 2.5 billion people will join them. That's a huge opportunity: if we can improve life in a city, you can improve life for more than half of humanity."
The next presenter was Colton Griffin, CEO of startup company WMSight, which offers real-time data analytics for distribution centers.
Colton Griffin draws a link between how companies and cities can use data to improve.
"Just like businesses are facing greater pressure to compete, cities are facing greater pressure to serve their citizens at a lower cost. They're being asked to decrease taxes, improve emergency services, develop transportation, and improve the experience of citizens all on a smaller budget."
Griffin's presentation explores how connected devices generate data that can help reduce the cost of creating better and safer communities.
The final presenter of the day was Nathaniel Horadam, a graduate student in Georgia Tech's City Planning program with a focus on transportation planning and connected autonomous vehicles.
Nathaniel Horadam claims that we will be underwhelmed by developments in smart cars.
"I'm coming at this from a transportation standpoint, and that is the area that I think within five years we're going to be fairly disappointed," said Horodam, throwing some cold water on the Smart Cities excitement. Click through the presentation to see his predictions on the biggest five themes in the space through 2022.
Tech Square is home to some of the brightest minds in technology conducting research and building products on the cutting-edge of emerging innovation, sometimes behind closed doors. Show&Tell swings those doors open for an afternoon of insights and predictions on exciting emerging technologies.
Show&Tell is a Sandbox ATL production with support from Honeywell.