North Carolina State University and the City of Raleigh are hosting the first Triangle Smart Cities Summit June 6 at the Hunt Library on NC State’s Centennial Campus. The event will bring together local city, industry, and academic leaders to share ideas aimed at making our region a smarter and more connected community.

Speakers and panelists include Raleigh Mayor McFarlane, other municipal leaders, executives from IBM, RedHat, Cisco, NetApp, SAS and ABB, NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson and research experts from UNC Chapel Hill, Duke and RTI. The keynote address will be given by former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, now a senior fellow and advisory council chair for MetroLab Network. These leaders will discuss the biggest challenges they face in the smart cities movement, and their current efforts and vision towards making the Triangle a smart region.

The morning portion of the event runs from 8:15 a.m. through 12:30 p.m. The afternoon features a poster session highlighting academic, municipality and industry research efforts in and around the smart cities concept. Poster submissions on topics related to smart cities are encouraged. Poster submission information and event details can be found on the Summit webpage: https://research.ncsu.edu/smartcities/triangle-smart-cities-innovation-summit/

The Summit is free and open to the public. No registration required.

“Smart cities will bring enormous benefit to citizens,” says Dennis Kekas, NC State’s associate vice chancellor in the Office of Partnerships and Economic Development. “While NC State University certainly possesses core strengths to help make smart cities a reality, we cannot move forward alone. We need to engage collaboratively with local industry and other regional universities, tapping their core strengths, bringing it all together in our cities and municipalities to test and implement technologies and applications that will improve the lives of citizens and make our communities some of the smartest in the country. We hope the Triangle Smart Cites Summit will serves as a launching point to make the vision of smart cities a reality in our region.”

The late afternoon and evening of June 6 bring two partner events with a focus on smart cities. RTCC & RIoT will host Show Me the Money – Venture Capital in Cleantech and IoT, followed by a RIoT Startup Pitch Night. These events are also free, but require registration.

The Triangle Smart Cities Summit is a result of the Smart Cities @ NC State University initiative. Through this effort, NC State seeks to foster collaboration and partnership in existing and new university strengths and expertise in smart cities relevant domains. The initiative works to tap the many smart cities-related resources, assets and capabilities within NC State and partner with municipalities, industry, nonprofits and other universities to advance applications in core smart cities areas. With particular strength in data analytics and storage, cybersecurity, sensors, clean energy, transportation, and wearables, NC State is uniquely positioned to address the technological challenges associated with smart cities problems. Our faculty, labs, centers and institutes can bring vast knowledge and resources to address critical issues facing cities and communities as they look to the future. Research projects like EcoPRT and Next Generation Planning Using 3D City Models highlight some of the NC State efforts in this area.

In addition, The City of Raleigh and NC State signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2016, which formalizes a commitment to explore opportunities for engagement, partnership and collaboration related to smart cities initiatives. Three specific projects are currently underway; Pavement Condition Assessment and Prioritization of Road Maintenance, IOT Climate Control System for Office Buildings, and Societal and Infrastructural Responses to Increases in Extreme Precipitation.