| | OCTOBER 20188CIOReviewSmart Cities are all about people. From the executive crossing Main Street making his way across a street at a frenzied, focused pace to the line of young people at a church looking for work or a meal to the parents who look relaxed at a park but keep watch over their kids on the swing set like a hawk, the city provides something: an opportunity. The opportunities we seek are as varied as the number of people who walk our streets and live in our dwellings and can include deals to be made, jobs to begin or the development of the next generation. When a city transitions from being a cold, lifeless place to a sentient, living organism that focuses on bringing opportunities to people faster, it becomes a Smart City. We are not there yet. But we can get there....City leaders who focus on people and opportunities will be the people who achieve the "Smart City" vision­whatever that means for any given city­first. They will get there first because they will start with a vision for what the Smart City will do, and they will likely focus first on what residents or visitors need most. To understand the need, they will use the best descriptive data they have to today to describe the problem. This will enable them to achieve the first critical task in building a Smart City: gain control of the data you have. Most cities can become "smart" using what they have today­85 percentage of the data we use in Kansas City's analytical platform come from our open data site. Long before a Chief Innovation Officer or Chief Technology Officer has to make a case for an expensive technology purchase, she or he can describe with authority how a problem has evolved and where gaps exist that a city can fill. In this way, the city begins its transformation. No longer do we fix streets and water pipes based on a street-by-street schedule; we look at trends and anticipate future needs. And we can do this without a single sensor. It's just a math problem.SMART CITY: A JOURNEY OF COLLECTIVE EFFORTSBy Bob Bennett, CIO, City of Kansas City, MOBob Bennett
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