St. Petersburg facilitates smart city conversations and initiatives across the public and private sectors.

How can Innovation Districts Help Facilitate Collaboration between Communities and Government?

The St. Petersburg Innovation District is a geographical hub bounded by a series of neighborhoods, grounded in anchor institutions including universities, hospitals, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and government agencies. However, because innovation happens everywhere, the innovation district also works with organizations outside of the geographic area.

The innovation district is a testbed for community ideas. While some communities drive smart city work through government agencies, we decided that our innovation district could operate as a convener and a vehicle for accelerating conversations and initiatives between different organizations.

How can Governments engage Citizens around Smart City Solutions?

Smart city leaders should let community challenges, rather than technology, drive a project. There could be an interesting new technology out there, but it might not work for your city’s needs.

Smart city innovators should listen to district partners that can give insight into local community needs. For example, we partnered with Deuces Live, a nonprofit organization revitalizing the historic African American business district in St. Petersburg. Through them, we worked to eliminate the digital gap among citizens. With libraries closed during the pandemic, many people were left without computer access. We have responded by creating four tech hubs, which provide recycled computer equipment to local churches that serve the community.

Through conversations with community partners like Deuces Live, we learn about needs within the community that we would not have otherwise known about.

What Role does Data Analysis Play in Connecting Citizens and Government?

Smart cities use technology and data to solve community challenges, so analysis of that data is critical. Cities should tap into resources within the community to analyze data and generate ideas. They can also work with partners like Spectrum Enterprise to aggregate and analyze multiple data sets to expose important trends and gain new insights.

Universities are another wealth of information. We love getting universities involved in our pilot programs, because faculty and students are creative minds that think on levels we do not. We turn data over to them, and say, this is what we are collecting, tell us how you would leverage that data for people in our city.

Do Citizens ever express Concern about the Data you collect and analyze?

Sometimes citizens are uneasy, because they imagine smart city solutions require deep tracking of individuals. Smart city leaders need to show people what is actually being collected. For example, if I am interested in making streets safer, I might want to track moments when a bike and a car almost collide. I am not interested in the individuals driving the cars and riding the bikes. Showing citizens what is actually being collected and why can build support for some of these initiatives.

Another way to reassure citizens who are uneasy about smart city solutions is to amplify existing smart tools. Technology is already enabling citizens’ lives, so we should bring that forward. I have been in many conversations with people who say they don’t think they use smart city technologies.  But most of them use a mobile parking app. It can be useful to point out a technology that citizens already use to improve their daily lives.

How Important is Flexibility when Engaging Citizens in Smart City Initiatives?

While it is important to have a consistent vision for your smart city, you should always be flexible based on partner and citizen feedback. If you are laser-focused on your vision, you will miss out on ideas from the people you are trying to serve.