Smart Cities Connect Opens With Calls for Digital Equity
The eighth annual Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo opened with a panel discussion around digital equity and the need for all communities to expand access to broadband as they emerge from the COVID-19 crisis. Shutterstock
Broadband connectivity and digital equity have been themes and goals echoed among smart city leaders for years with varying degrees of fulfillment but a new sense of urgency is taking over the conversation.
“The time is now,” Colman Keane, broadband executive director in Fort Collins, Colo., told his fellow panelists and the smart cities community Tuesday morning during one of the opening sessions of the Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo.
Minnesota Crafts Privacy Principles for Emerging Transit Tech
Minnesota’s Connected and Automated Vehicle Alliance is developing a privacy and security framework to help guide current and future smart transportation infrastructure and vehicle projects. by Jule Pattison-Gordon / April 13, 2021
State transportation departments face a challenge when considering connected and automated vehicles and infrastructure. On the one hand, these transit initiatives carry the promise of making services more efficient, effective and safe for all residents. On the other hand, poorly managed projects might collect troves of sensitive resident data, share it inappropriately with police and other departments and fail to keep any of it secure against hackers, leaving residents feeling spied on and at risk.
Can Dig-Once Policies Hasten the Close of the Digital Divide?
“Dig once” suggests that it makes more sense to lay the groundwork for broadband expansion through larger transportation projects. But should this forward-thinking idea be mandated or considered a best practice? Shutterstock/Fahroni
As local areas and states keep slugging away at the digital divide, time and money may separate the winners from the losers in the broadband infrastructure game. One potential way to save time and money is through a “dig-once” approach, which refers to the idea of minimizing “the number and scale of excavations when installing telecommunications infrastructure in highway rights-of-way,” according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Opinion: New Money for Ed Tech, but Same Potential Pitfalls
The American Rescue Plan presents schools with some high-stakes opportunities to make lasting changes. Pixabay/MohamedHassan
About $130 billion allocated for K-12 education from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) will provide schools with much-needed funds to help them recover from pandemic-created losses. And it will also allow them to rebuild and rethink the educational technology programs they’ve leaned on so heavily this past year.
But given the magnitude of these one-time monies, the stakes are raised for schools to ensure the funds allocated to ed tech are well-spent and focused on sustainability.
The new software combines a huge database for verifying identity with AI-powered tools meant to comb them, looking for fraud and irregularities. And it s found an early user in California, which was at the center of a massive unemployment insurance fraud scheme last year.