White House plans to help with smart city projects

Source: ReadWrite on October 2, 2016 | Amanda Razani

After last year’s initial investment of $160 million, The White House has stated that it is placing an extra $80 million into technology and smart city projects.

A large portion of the funds will be used by the National Science Foundation.  The NSF plans to spend $60 million on investments and grants for smart city projects during fiscal years 2016 and 2017, which will include high-risk projects, healthcare technology and data research.

On top of this big announcement, The White House also discussed plans for the enlargement of the MetroLab Network, a group of partnerships between universities, local governments and research institutions, with focus on smart city efforts. The network has increased to about 40 cities and counties, since its original founding list of 20 cities.  Several on this list have more than one research or academic partner.

New to the partnership list are the city of Los Angeles and California State University in Los Angeles, the University of Miami, Florida International University and Miami Dade College, Miami-Dade County, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, the University of Pittsburgh, the city of San Francisco and the University of California in Berkley.  The University of Pittsburgh is joining an existing partnership between Carnegie Mellon University and the city of Pittsburgh.

What White House initiative means for the future

The Southern California partnership will mostly focus on economic work that will help businesses owned by women and minorities to go digital, and help connect university entrepreneurs to civic issues they can fix.  Meanwhile, the Florida contingent will be focused on issues dealing with climate change that pose a threat to the region in the coming decades.

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