204 BROOKLYN NEWS BROOKLYN-USA.ORG
Brooklyn: A Smart City
Technology now allows our cars
to monitor gas mileage in real time,
and to let us know to avoid traffic on
the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Smartphone apps tell us when the next
train will arrive at our station or when
a table will become available at our
favorite restaurants.
Borough President Adams knows
firsthand how technology has the
power to transform government. As
a young man, he studied computers
with the initial goal of becoming a
programmer. After he joined the NYPD,
he helped build and deploy CompStat,
a revolutionary management system
that mobilized data to bring a dynamic
approach to law enforcement, leading
to significant reductions in crime
across the five boroughs.
Now, Borough President Adams
wants to bring a CompStat-like strategy
to government, assessing in real time
the challenges that communities face
and our deployment of resources.
In particular, his administration has
embraced the “smart city” concept,
which is cutting down on long-term
government costs while improving
productivity across a variety of sectors
through the power of data.
Smart cities include “smart
buildings,” and Borough President
Adams has decided to make Brooklyn
Borough Hall an incubator and testing
ground for this technological revolution;
earlier this year, to integrate 21st
century technology into the People’s
House, he teamed up with flowthings.
io, a DUMBO-based software company,
and Dell, a global computing giant, to
establish a smart city pilot program in
the People’s House.
The initiative has allowed Borough
President Adams and his staff to
collect and access real time data
on conditions in Brooklyn’s oldest
government building. Sensors such
as smart-plugs and smart-strips
measure energy usage around the
building. Multi-sensors determine
whether equipment has been operating
efficiently. Device counters monitor
occupancy in rooms that sometimes
experience overcrowding. Additionally,
ultrasonic rangefinders ensure in realtime
that ADA-designated entrances
are accessible. Borough President
Adams hopes the findings and analysis
of his pilot program will encourage
others to implement similar ‘smart
city’ innovations.
“Every dollar saved on electricity
or controlling the temperature of a
building contributes to higher profits
and wages,” said Borough President
Adams. “As Brooklyn becomes the
model for efficiency in business
and government, we will have more
resources to invest in our children and
families. In addition, saving energy will
allow us to reduce the carbon dioxide
emissions that create global climate
change, fulfilling our responsibility to
protect the environment and reduce the
threat of severe weather that results in
coastal flooding and superstorms.”
The partnership with flowthings.io
will also support the rapidly developing
technology sector in Brooklyn, where
startup companies have opened
their doors in the Brooklyn Navy
Yard, DUMBO, Industry City in Sunset
Park, and Williamsburg. Many of the
jobs created by these companies
are available to workers who have
completed a training program or
community college.
“We can lead the way in developing
tools to better track the threats to
existing affordable housing units rather
than lamenting their loss after it is too
late, and we can devise solutions that
revolutionize the approach to our street
grid and its varied traffic patterns,”
wrote Borough President Adams in an
op-ed printed in City & State. “While we
are developing the technology that is
making smart cities come alive in 44
countries, including every continent
but Antarctica, New York City has yet to
get smart in implementing it in our own
backyard. Brooklyn’s future is laid out
in ones and zeroes, and we are ready
with the technology to read it, shape
it, and deploy it better than any other
municipality on the globe.”
Borough President Adams described
the partnership with flowthings.io and
Dell as “the tip of the iceberg,” evidence
of his greater mission for government
introducing technology to stimulate
private sector innovation while
increasing public sector efficiency. For
example, he has collaborated with Heat
Seek NYC, an award-winning Brooklynbased
startup that uses sensors and
web applications to help landlords
and tenants monitor heating during
the winter months, to implement the
technology in apartment buildings
throughout the borough. He has also
embarked on a partnership with
Benefit Kitchen, a financial literacy
tool available on smartphones and
desktop computers that helps combat
poverty by easily allowing families to
determine eligibility for local, state,
and federal benefits.
Technology continues to expand
the limits of possibility, and Borough
President Adams is plugging Brooklyn
into the many opportunities being
created every day that separate the
borough from the rest of the world as
a truly “smart city.”
Photo Credit: Erica Sherman/Brooklyn BP’s Office
During a tour of flowthings.io’s
DUMBO office, Borough President Adams,
holding a small transistor, reviewed
real-time data on conditions
in Brooklyn Borough Hall from the
digital platform set up by the software
company as part of their joint smart
city pilot program.
What is a “Smart City?”
The smart city concept is focused on improving local
quality of life through the ability to securely integrate
multiple data streams and technologies to manage
a city’s assets including, but not limited to, hospitals,
information systems, law enforcement, libraries,
power plants, schools, transportation grids, waste
management, water supply networks, and other
community services.