An accountant, a farmer and a teacher walk into a train depot... Sounds like the beginning of a great joke doesn’t it? Funny enough, I met people in each of those professions as well as many others at the AgLanta Conference 2018. At this year’s conference, we focused on the role of agriculture in ‘smart cities’. To start the conference off, Henry Gordon-Smith, Founder of Agritecture, so eloquently asked the audience: “can a city really be smart without agriculture?”
As far as professions go, conservationists are not known for their optimism. And, with the future of the planet looking so bleak, who can blame them? By 2100, the world is on track for more than three degrees of warming, sliding past the targets set by the Paris climate accord in 2015. By the middle of this century, between 15 and 37 per cent of species sampled in one study could be completely gone. In 2016, it became clear that giraffe populations had declined by 40 per cent over the last 30 years, earning the animals a spot on the endangered species list.
Read MoreWhen China decides to do something, the country can be incredibly agile and quick in implementation. One example is the construction of a "Forest City" that pushes the boundaries of sustainable urban planning and development, a concept the EPA should certainly take a look at.
Read MoreAustin’s northern neighbor of Georgetown has been making surprising waves in the nationalpress and in several movies and documentaries, including Al Gore’s latest. This town of 67,000, “one of the redder towns in one of the redder counties in Texas,” in the words of its mayor, has become one of “the first US towns, and the largest in Texas, to depend entirely on renewable energy,” in a process that began in 2012. We spoke with Mayor Dale Ross recently to hear about his vision and to discuss how green and tech innovation in Georgetown and Austin might influence each other.
Read MoreNatural disasters have been unnaturally on the rise. In the wake of such reports, it seems undeniable that corporations are responsible for a great deal of the environmental factors leading to extreme weather events. Think, for example, of how many greenhouse gas emissions are produced during the manufacturing process alone.
Read MoreThis unstoppable trend is driving double-digit growth in a trillion-dollar global market. What are the opportunities for telecom companies, utilities, financial institutions, transportation companies, software developers, equipment manufacturers and others in the smart-city market?
Read MoreThe National League of Cities (NLC) has released “Trends in Smart City Development,” a new report featuring case studies about how five cities — Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Charlotte, NC, and New Delhi, India — are implementing smart city projects from different approaches. The report also provides recommendations to help local governments consider and plan these projects
Read MoreIt’s that time of year again. The “10 technology trends” and “5 ways the Internet of Things (IoT) will change your business next year” prognostications are coming out. I always read these and enjoy the critical thinking behind the authors’ lists. And every year I think about looking back at last year’s lists to see how well the forecasters did, but there isn’t much value in “I told you so” whether you are saying it or hearing it so I let that urge pass
Read MorePittsburgh has partnered with Uber on its self-driving pilot and it's working on smart traffic lights thanks to $10.9 million in funding from the US Department of Transportation (DoT) as part of the DoT's $165 million latest funding round for smart city projects. Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto has high hopes that a full conversion to a smart city will happen sooner rather than later, and he's taking steps to make that happen, despite joking that self-driving cars could be what keeps him from getting re-elected.
Read MoreAt Stanford, scholars and students are looking for creative ways to make cities better places for people to live and thrive – places that offer quality and affordable housing, desirable public spaces, robust transportation systems, healthy air and water, and economic promise for all.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that cooperation was the only choice for relations between the world’s two largest economies, with Trump saying the two had established a “clear sense of mutual respect.”
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