The latest from the smart city of St. Petersburg, Florida

Technology offers so much opportunity to solve or address community challenges. A community, like St Petersburg, is cautious about adopting new technology and likes to learn from experience. Our passion for smart cities came from our desire to grow as an entrepreneurial, economically vibrant city. We knew we had to embrace technology and explore how it could improve our community. So, we started on the journey to becoming a smart city, and, twnety four months ago, St. Petersburg, Florida was announced as an US Ignite Smart Gigabit Community.

Together with our community partners and Spectrum Enterprise, we brainstormed a list of smart city projects we wanted to potentially pursue. We used reports and studies from community initiatives that describe ongoing challenges and lessons learned from other smart cities to help inform where we wanted to go. Today, I’m excited to share with you an update on three of the smart city projects underway in the City of St. Petersburg:

1)    Smart lighting

One of the first projects we kicked off was to implement a Smart Lighting solution that allows scheduled timers to dim or brighten the lights based on movement in the area and environmental inputs. The smart light posts that are located on the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus have also been fitted with safety cameras and emergency buttons to alert campus police of any activity in the area. We made sure the data being collected from these sensors was immediately integrated into the university’s network, so the students could participate and help us define local challenges and solicit solutions based on data. Together, we’re starting to look at how we can leverage the smart lighting to bring more technical advances to utilities, infrastructure, public safety, and even intelligent transportation.

2)    Smart intersection

Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg resides, has one of the highest incidents of pedestrian and bike fatalities in the state. So, we’ve kicked off a smart intersection project and identified a specific intersection in the city to integrate sensors and software into smart light poles. These light poles have a number of different technologies installed that give the city the flexibility to adjust those intersections. The monitoring capabilities will help city planners understand the flow of bike, car, and pedestrian traffic. This information will give the team the information they need to design technology solutions or even physical barriers to help reduce the number of accidents and ultimately save lives.

3)    Guardians of the Gulf

St. Petersburg is home to one of the largest communities of marine scientists in the Southeastern United States. As such, we launched the Guardians of the Gulf initiative. This is an educational project linking marine scientists at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science with children in the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Suncoast. By placing the pilot program in an economically disadvantaged community, our aim is to inform and inspire members of our community who might not have direct access to the coast. We want to give these communities a voice in the dialogue and teach the kids to be an advocate for climate change by understanding what it means to be part of a coastal community. This project won the IDC Smart City 2020 award for Sustainable Infrastructure.

Pushing innovation forward, together

The success we’ve seen in St. Petersburg over the last eighteen months can be attributed to the strong partnership between the teams. We’ve tried new ideas and been able to pivot when a project hits an inevitable snag or roadblock. This partnership between the St. Petersburg Innovation District and Spectrum Enterprise is helping us realize the art of the possible. Together, we’re thinking outside the box and driving innovation forward.

I, for one, can’t wait to continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible for the Sunshine City.

To learn more about smart cities, contact our partner, Spectrum Smart Cities.