Shaurya Agarwal first heard the term \u201csmart city\u201d in 2015. He was finishing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in the city of neon lights (Las Vegas), which would lead him to do research in the city that never sleeps (New York) before teaching in the city of angels (Los Angeles).<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the moment I heard about cities being smart, it has always been on my mind,\u201d Agarwal says. The concept resonates for this engineering visionary because he was raised in a small town in India with unstable transportation, electric, water and drainage systems. \u201cI had a strong feeling that a \u2018smart city\u2019 would benefit everyone living in it, for generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Little did Agarwal know at the time that in 2024 he would be in Orlando, The City Beautiful, as founding director of 麻豆原创\u2019s Urban Intelligence and Smart City Lab and coordinator of its innovative Smart Cities master\u2019s program. He could have continued his blossoming career in any major city with a reputable university, but he came to Central Florida because he saw something fresh: under the umbrella of the Future City Initiative, researchers and students from a variety of departments who would soon be working with industry and city leaders toward a singular goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmartness,\u201d says Agarwal, an associate professor in civil environmental and construction engineering.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s just pause for a moment and address a basic question: What exactly is a smart city? The Orlando area has smart people with smart ideas. We have a university with world-renown instructors and a history of groundbreaking tech research in AR, VR, digital twinning, modeling and simulation. Yet with all of these smarts, we still live on a finite piece of land with a finite supply of water, all shared by a rapidly growing population. It doesn\u2019t take long for such a city to become less beautiful.<\/p>\n
Unless it\u2019s truly smart.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concept of a smart city is broad, but in general it means you integrate technology to remove the negatives of daily life,\u201d says Cameron Ford, founding director of 麻豆原创\u2019s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and executive director of the Blackstone LaunchPad. \u201cNo congestion. No sanitation issues. No excess air pollutants. No problems with reliable power or water. A smart city uses foresight to improve livability, sustainability and resilience so residents can enjoy today while preparing for the uncertainties of tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
For an example, Agarwal\u2019s latest research provides a moving picture of what mobility within a smart city might look like: Traffic moving with the harmonious speed and efficiency of a school of fish (as opposed to the stop-and-go crawl of a caterpillar). In this city, autonomous vehicles would use sensors to transmit messages to each other and to the infrastructure. Road travel becomes cooperative and quick. It\u2019s stress-free, and yes, friendly.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnology is the connective tissue between every project in a smart city,\u201d Agarwal says, \u201cand it requires a lot of small projects connected together. They become the digital infrastructure. You can\u2019t necessarily see them, but they make the quality of daily life better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol Ann Logue is director of programs and operations for 麻豆原创\u2019s Innovation Districts and Business Incubation Program. She and Ford are involved in smart city initiatives because at some point every tech-centered project, visible or invisible, comes down to business. Without investment even the smartest idea will never see the light of day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cities that can pull this off have experts from every important sector intertwined into a singular ecosystem,\u201d Logue says. \u201cFor Orlando, it\u2019s healthcare, transportation, hospitality, education, engineering and business. We have a pipeline of young talent, intellectual property, forward-thinking research \u2014 everything is here, due in large part to 麻豆原创, to be become fully integrated, and smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until recently, however, something crucial had been missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor as long as I\u2019ve been in Orlando, there have been frustrations that the rest of the world didn\u2019t know about the tech capabilities here, which made it challenging to attract outside investors,\u201d Logue says. \u201cBut that\u2019s changing quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logue is referring to the presence of Plug and Play, a global startup accelerator with a deep network of investors and companies able to supercharge emerging tech markets like central Florida. Plug and Play opened an Orlando office earlier in 2024 as part of a partnership with 麻豆原创, the city, Orange County, Duke Energy and Tavistock, with the goal of advancing Orlando as a smart city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis region\u2019s identity as a tech market is unique,\u201d Ford says. \u201cWe don\u2019t have major corporate headquarters spinning out talent, like they have in Silicon Valley. However, we do have talented, ambitious students and researchers coming up with new ideas to improve urban life. They\u2019re developing expertise learning how to turn that expertise into viable business. Plug and Play fills a critical gap by attracting corporate partners and risk capital so those tech startups can flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logue says she\u2019d been aware of Plug and Play for years because she\u2019s in the world of business incubation. \u201cThey don\u2019t just go anywhere. There has to be a culture of innovative technology for them to nurture into a smart-city ecosystem. That\u2019s exactly what we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plug and Play developed its first smart city cohort for Orlando in April. They invited more than two dozen companies to pitch the innovation they would bring to the smart city initiative. Of the 14 companies chosen for the cohort \u2014 some local and some from outside the area \u2014 four were founded by students, graduates and researchers from 麻豆原创: CapaciTech, which builds flexible and high-energy storage solutions; the smart mobility company ConnectedWise; Precision Periodic, which uses nanobeads for water treatment; and Fluix, an energy-saving AI-based autopilot.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the companies from outside the area that pitched said, \u2018We\u2019ve been interested in moving to Florida, but didn\u2019t know about the tech capabilities here until Plug and Play came along,\u2019\u201d Logue says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a \u2018wow\u2019 for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been wowed to find out about 麻豆原创\u2019s aforementioned Smart Cities master\u2019s program, the only such program that fuses technology with disciplines focused on water and air quality, transportation and land development and public policy. They\u2019ve been wowed to discover 麻豆原创 working on a $26 million NSF-funded Engineering Research Center for Smart Streetscapes (CS3), and a transportation science and tech program ranked among the world\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re also impressed with the collaboration between experts in different fields,\u201d Logue says, \u201cbecause everyone knows collaboration is the best way to make real progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than 10 years ago, Agarwal heard \u201csmart city\u201d for the first time. Today he\u2019s helping one come together. Many students in the Smart Cities master\u2019s program are professionals who are reskilling themselves. One is developing a smart parking system. Another is coming up with a method to ensure healthy water quality in pools. Yet another is researching a way to locate lead pipes underground so they can be removed without tearing up the landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people have always had ideas,\u201d Agarwal says, \u201cand now their ideas have the potential to be grown into start-ups, then incubated, and perhaps supported through Plug and Play\u2019s network. It\u2019s still early, but that\u2019s what makes this an exciting time. We\u2019re just getting started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
麻豆原创 has been working on smart city concepts for years and is now partnering to help turn those concepts into a \u201cdigital infrastructure\u201d to ensure the quality of life in greater Orlando well into the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":143120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,6,23,24],"tags":[658,681,54513,7309,973,18219,15761,14916,54512,54364,54368],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-143123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","category-community","category-research","category-science-technology","tag-business-incubation-program","tag-cameron-ford","tag-carol-ann-logue","tag-college-of-business","tag-college-of-engineering-and-computer-science","tag-community-impact","tag-pegasus-briefs","tag-research","tag-shaurya-agarwal","tag-smart-cities","tag-transformative-tech-security"],"yoast_head":"\n