Nearly 100 Action Clusters Showcase Their Projects at the Global City Teams Challenge Expo – June 13-14, 2016

The Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Expo—convened by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and US Ignite earlier this month in Austin, Texas—attracted 2000 attendees to see the latest developments in the rapidly-expanding smart city sector. With more than 110 cities from 11 countries giving on-stage presentations and hosting display booths, the Austin Convention Center was, for those two days, the center of the smart city universe.

Each presentation and/or booth featured the ongoing work of a GCTC “action cluster”—a team comprising leaders and experts from municipal, technology, and academic organizations.  (Copies of the presentations are available online.)  Many of the action clusters included at least two cities, an aspect of the challenge designed to move the smart city community toward scalability and replicability. Some action clusters are also looking to integrate smart city technologies across several sectors (e.g., energy, transportation, environment, emergency response, lighting, etc.). Brief summaries of each of the action clusters are available online.

According to Dr. Sokwoo Rhee who leads the GCTC effort for NIST, the collaborative action-cluster approach is accelerating the pace of technology development and deployment. In an interview with StateScoop.com, a media site focusing on news and events in state and local government technology, Rhee said, “I’m seeing that the breaking down of silos is really working, and we think that will only continue.”

The GCTC Expo served as the mid-point of the GCTC 2016 initiative. In the coming months, the action clusters will continue to refine and deploy their projects, and measure progress toward goals and key performance indicators.  The Challenge will culminate next year with a major Expo event, which NIST is currently planning for June 2017 in Washington, D.C.

For additional information about the GCTC program, please visit http://www.nist.gov/cps/sagc.cfm and www.globalcityteams.org.