The Dallas Police Department Named Winner in the IDC 2022 Smart Cities North America Awards
IDC names 17 winners for its 2022 North America Smart City Awards
From Schenectady, New York, to Santa Ana, California, the group recognized smart city accomplishments across 14 categories for its fifth annual awards.
By Cailin Crowe, Smart Cities Dive
March 30th, 2022
IDC Government Insights announced the winners of its fifth annual Smart Cities North America Awards last week.
The awards are intended to recognize the progress that North American cities have made across smart city projects, in addition to providing a forum for localities to share best practices. According to IDC, this year's winners were selected due to their foresight and effectiveness at using technology and innovation to provide new services and economic opportunities to meet resident needs.
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Cities can self-nominate or be nominated by others and are selected based on a scoring rubric that assesses "how mature a city is in using technology, forming partnerships and being innovative," IDC Vice President of Government Insights, Education, Smart Cities and Communities Ruthbea Yesner said in an email interview. The awards also factor in votes from the public.
IDC has seen some interesting changes among winners over a five-year period, Yesner said. "There is a lot more focus on equity, accessibility, sustainability and resilience," she said, as the pandemic and weather events created an urgency among cities and communities. IDC has also seen more large-scale projects among winning cities in recent years, a change from smaller pilots and implementations, according to Yesner.
Albuquerque, for example, won in the education category for its IoT BootCamp, a smart city testbed created in partnership with a local community college and the city's Department of Technology and Innovation. The city has named five projects to be tested as prototypes at the site, including a remote street light controller, a mobile Wi-Fi solution, a sound detection system, a parking reservation system and an energy harvesting project.
“We are honored to receive national recognition for what Albuquerque does best – supporting those who bring their own creativity and diverse backgrounds to solve real-world problems,” Albuquerque's Technology and Innovation Director Brian Osterloh said in a statement. “We are eager to continue the growth of this partnership as our community gains recognition as a national hub for IoT excellence.”
Meanwhile, Dallas was recognized for its violent crime reduction efforts. The city partnered with the University of Texas at San Antonio to develop a strategy, in part informed by predictive-data modeling and "designed to avoid heavy-handed policing." Ultimately, the city experienced a 14.5% reduction in violent crime compared to the previous year and arrests dropped by more than half.
[read the full article at Smart Cities Dive]