The 2020 winning communities are Clayton County, and the cities of Sandy Springs, Savannah, and Valdosta. In previous years, the announcement was made in one of the winning communities. This year, the ongoing health pandemic forced organizers to get creative, and rather than cancel the event, they shifted it online.

Georgia Smart is an award-winning program that enables smart local development within Georgia. Georgia Smart welcomes communities of any size within the state to apply for technical and financial assistance that will help them to envision, explore, and plan for their smart future. Selected communities are supported in several ways; they receive:

·      Up to $100,000 in grant funding to develop their pilot.

·      Technical assistance and funding for a Georgia Tech researcher.

·      Access to a network of peer governments to share best practices.

·      Access to a local, national, and international network of experts for advice on piloting a smart community.

“As an institution of Georgia, Georgia Tech is foremost committed to making our state better,” said Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera. “We’re very excited about Georgia Smart’s third class of winners, who will be able to use our preeminent research and technology to improve lives, livelihoods, safety, and equity — no matter their community’s size, population, demographics, or income level.”

The summary of the new projects follows:

Smart Pedestrian Planning, Clayton County – This project will build a decision support system for transport project prioritization to promote mobility and equity, and to identify smart technologies to support walkability throughout the community. The plan calls for engagement with high school students for data collection tasks and use of Georgia Tech’s semi-automated Geographic Information System collection process to gather sidewalk data. Georgia Tech researchers involved in this project include Randall Guensler, Arthi Rao, and Catherine Ross. Partner organizations include the cities of Lake City and Morrow, as well as the Rotary Club of Lake Spivey/Clayton County.

Streamlining Suburban Transit, Sandy Springs – This project will develop a pilot transit signal priority system for the MARTA bus service through the use of an application programming interface, with the goal of reducing transit time for riders. Georgia Tech researchers Michael Hunter and Kari Watkins will partner with this project team. Collaborators include MARTA and the City of Dunwoody.

Civic Data Science for Equitable Development, Savannah – The city of Savannah plans to build new decision-making tools using a city data hub and analytics platform for programmatic outcomes for vacant and blighted properties. The project will build on work started through the 2018 Georgia Smart Albany project. Georgia Tech researchers Clio Andris and Omar Isaac Asensio will assist with the project. They will work with a number of partner agencies including the City of Savannah Housing and Neighborhood Services Department, City of Savannah Information Technology Department, Coastal Georgia Indicators Coalition, Chatham County/City of Savannah Land Bank Authority Inc., Community Housing Services Agency Inc., the Center for Community Progress, and the civic data technology company Tolemi.

Traffic Monitoring and Communication System, Valdosta - This project includes development of a smart traffic management system that will connect all 128 traffic signals in Valdosta for increased safety and efficiency. Georgia Tech researcher Baabak Ashuri will lead the research activities. Valdosta State University researcher Barry Hojjatie will serve as co-principal investigator on the project. Partners include Southern Georgia Regional Commission, Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority, Valdosta State University, Industry: Temple, Applied Information.

“Georgia Tech’s Smart Community Challenge drives communities to think broadly about how technology and automation can be a part of their future, connecting their citizens to solutions,” said Anne Kaiser, vice president, Georgia Power Community & Economic Development. “Smart solutions, focused on the most critical challenges, help improve the quality of life and foster inclusive innovation. Georgia Power is proud to support a program that enables a more connected Georgia focused on building resilient and sustainable communities.”

This new class showcases an expansion of the Georgia Smart program and includes 17 additional community partners assisting with projects, and new Georgia Tech multidisciplinary teams for community research impact. Additionally, technical funding assistance has more than doubled this year compared to the past two years. Since Georgia Smart’s pilot launch, close to $2M has been provided and leveraged for the program.

Apart from naming the new program recipients, Georgia Smart provided updates from the 2019 winning communities:

Smart Uptown Digital Twin - Led by the city of Columbus, this program included installing public Wi-Fi gateways on Georgia Power light poles, digital twin model improvements, and using video and Array of Things sensor data for traffic pattern analysis related to Covid-19 lockdowns.

Smart Neighborhood Public Kiosks - Led by a collaboration between the city of Macon and Bibb County, this project developed a digital equity road map to support the installation of digital kiosks in areas of need within the community. The goal was to provide access to digital city services, citywide information, and internet connectivity to underserved regions of the community.

Smart Corridor Study - Led by the city of Woodstock, this team created the Smart Woodstock Master Plan, and completed a smart corridor study for their downtown district that focused on parking, transportation efficiency, and pedestrian and bicycle safety. Hundreds of citizens survey responses will be integrated into the planning documents.

Walking School Bus Application - Led by the city of Milton, this project developed a smartphone application to promote safe walking and biking to school. This project created a network of devices, such as smartphones, to connect students and parents, and to arrange supervised groups, designate safe primary routes, and provide wait times for students wishing to join the walking/biking groups.

Previous projects have also included work in Chatham County to install sea level sensors to measure flood risk during natural disasters and storms. In Albany, an automated housing registry system was put in place to consolidate department data, improve efficiency, and build a coalition of collaborating departments that meet weekly to integrate the system into the city’s operations. Meanwhile, Gwinnett County just won the National Association of Counties achievement award for their Connected Vehicle Technology Master Plan, and Chamblee is finalizing their Best Practices with AV Shuttles report.

Thursday’s virtual event also highlighted the work that Georgia Tech students completed as part of the Smart Community Corps summer internship program.

“Our commitment with Georgia starts with nurturing the next generation of leaders in bettering communities and improving the human condition, said Debra Lam, managing director of Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation at Georgia Tech. “We are fortunate to have had Georgia Tech students from various disciplines and backgrounds pivot virtually, and work with and learn from the local communities this summer.”

The Smart Community Corps program is supported by Georgia Tech’s Serve-Learn-Sustain program, the Student Government Association, and Tech’s Career Center, along with funds from Microsoft, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Community Foundation of Central Georgia. This year’s class is double that of last year’s, with 13 undergraduate and graduate students in disciplines ranging from computational media, to civil engineering, to computer science. In addition to the Georgia Smart community projects, the students also created an economic and community plan for the city of Douglas and assisted the Environmental Protection Agency with a national life cycle assessment model that was utilized by the city of LaGrange and Southeast Georgia Coastal Coalition.

Another bonus to the Aug. 6 event was the addition of a panel discussion, entitled “Georgia Inclusive Innovation,” that included state government and business leaders:

·      Geoff Duncan - Lieutenant Governor, State of Georgia

·      Wendell Dallas - Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Georgia Power

·      Doug Hooker - Executive Director, Atlanta Regional Commission

·      Maria Thacker Goethe - President and CEO, Georgia Bio; CEO, Center for Global Health Innovation

·      Aarti Tandon - CEO, Smart City Expo Atlanta | Moderator

Collaborators in the Georgia Smart program include Georgia Tech, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Georgia Association of Regional Commissions, Association County Commissioners of Georgia, Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Municipal Association, Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia Planning Association, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Technology Association of Georgia, and Georgia Power.

“This year’s grant recipients demonstrate the tremendous potential that technological innovation holds to transform communities and improve quality of life,” said Doug Hooker, executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). “ARC is proud to be a partner of the Georgia Smart program, helping to foster the development of stronger and more equitable communities across the state. These projects will show other communities what’s possible when you think outside the box to find creative ways of addressing our big challenges.”

Learn more about the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge at smartcities.ipat.gatech.edu/georgia-smart.

Georgia Smart is a funding and technical assistance pilot program open to Georgia governments to develop and implement projects around mobility, equity, and smart resilience with assistance from Georgia Tech researchers. In June, the challenge named four new grant recipients – Columbus Muscogee County, Macon-Bibb County, the City of Milton, and the City of Woodstock.

During a recent virtual meeting, city and county representatives and their Georgia Tech partners discussed the status of their projects and the challenges they’ve faced along the way.

Macon Smart Neighborhoods

Macon-Bibb County is developing a system of smart kiosks to promote digital equity in underserved and at-risk areas. One in three Macon-Bibb County households doesn’t have access to broadband internet, while 1 in 5 is without access to a computer or smart device.

“The real problem is not folks having access to the internet, but having it at home,” said Joe Nabhan, GIS manager, Macon-Bibb County Government. “That’s especially important during these times when a lot of people are at home and not able to go out as much.”

Residents can use the kiosks at several locations around the county to find information about elections, public health, safety, crime, and government services.

Arthi Rao, research scientist, Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, is leading research for the Smart Neighborhood project. She’s collaborating with the county to figure out where the kiosks are needed most, looking at residents’ income, education, and age, which influences social isolation and reduced mobility. Her team also launched an online survey for residents.

“We wanted to use community wisdom in terms of where they thought would be the ideal places for these kiosks and where we might optimize usage,” Rao said during March’s mid-term meeting.

Milton Smarter Safer Routes to School

The City of Milton is developing an interactive smartphone app that will provide real-time communication for parents of students who want to walk to school in a group, known as a “walking school bus.” Parents can use the app to see their kids’ real-time location, who’s walking with them, and confirm that they’ve arrived at school.

Encouraging students to walk or bike to school reduces car congestion from school drop-offs and pick-ups and promotes health and wellness. Studies show that fewer than 10% of school-aged students in the U.S. walk or bike to school in the morning, a significant decrease over the past 50 years.

“We’ve seen the results of what walking to school can do in terms of bolstering communities and social interaction, and physical activity is associated with better cognitive performance. So, our kids can do better in school if they have that morning walk to school,” said Kari Watkins, associate professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She’s leading the project with senior research engineer Angshuman Guin of civil engineering.

In the months since first launching the project, Milton officials and Georgia Tech researchers have surveyed and met with school leaders, parents, and students to get their feedback. “It gave us a lot of insight into how kids walk to school, what they like about walking to school, and what parents thought about the prospect of having an app that would assist with it,” said Michele McIntosh-Ross, principal planner, City of Milton.

Researchers have mapped current school routes, collected video data of students on their walks, and helped to develop and analyze the survey. The data will assist the city in gauging where to focus their efforts to create more walkable communities.

The project team will test the app this summer; their goal is to make it available to families in August.

Woodstock Smart Master Plan and Corridor Study

Significant population growth in the City of Woodstock, along with 100,000 event attendees every year, has caused traffic congestion and a parking shortage for residents, business owners, and visitors to downtown.

The city is addressing these challenges with SmartWoodstock, a masterplan for optimizing infrastructure needs and modeling land-use changes. Researchers are concentrating on the quarter-mile radius around downtown Woodstock. Ramachandra Sivakumar, senior research engineer, Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization, said the area “captures the essence of what’s happening in terms of dining, retail, wellness, and other points of interest. The quarter-mile is the sweet spot.” 

The project team surveyed residents in person and online about the benefits of smart technology that are most important to them, receiving hundreds of responses. “We’re fortunate because we have an involved community in the downtown district,” said Katie O’Connor, senior city planner, City of Woodstock.

Survey results show that improved vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle safety, as well as transportation travel times, are all important to residents. The results will help the city to determine the most useful technologies for the downtown corridor, like license plate readers, roadside sensors, and smart parking meters.

While the first year of the project has focused on planning, the second and third years will be a pilot project that implements technology.

Columbus Smart Uptown

The City of Columbus is developing technologies for its uptown district to promote safety, security, and a smart transportation system. Proposed technologies include free public wi-fi, license plate readers, and sensors. The city has already installed two sensors, which are collecting data, and have tapped into video feeds from the police department.

City officials are partnering with Georgia Tech to find suitable locations for Internet of Things devices and analyze data to provide better service and reduce response time for first responders. A significant component of the project is digital twin technology – a virtual model of the uptown district. The digital twin will incorporate new and existing city data, providing insights for more effective decision-making like reducing traffic accidents for safer streets.

“We want to evaluate street conditions and see the potential causes [of crashes] and safety concerns,” said Neda Mohammadi, postdoctoral fellow, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She’s collaborating on the project with John Taylor, professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Network Dynamics Lab, and Russ Clark, senior research scientist, School of Computer Science.

“A huge amount of work has gone in already into phase one. It’s amazing what Georgia Tech can do with raw numbers to turn them into something that we can begin to start using and comprehending,” said Andrew Lesh, application developer, Columbus Consolidated Government.

Including the 2018 inaugural class, which is continuing work on their projects, Georgia Smart now has a total of eight smart community projects across the state.

“The program is a true testament of Georgia's innovation and collaboration efforts," said Debra Lam, managing director of Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation at Georgia Tech. "While some states can claim a sole smart city or two, Georgia can showcase a diverse group of communities, each pursuing different smart applications to improve their quality of life. The projects can also serve as models for other local communities and beyond.”

For a second summer, Georgia Tech students will join the Georgia Smart projects full time as part of the Smart Community Corps program, where they'll work on-site alongside communities. The fellowship is in partnership with Serve Learn Sustain, the Center for Career Discovery & Development, and the Student Government Association. Microsoft, EPA, and the Community Foundation of Central Georgia fund the programs.

The Georgia Institute of Technology organizes Georgia Smart in partnership with Georgia Power, Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Association County Commissioners of Georgia, Georgia Centers for Innovation, Georgia Chamber, Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Georgia Municipal Association, Metro Atlanta Chamber, and Technology Association of Georgia, Georgia Planning Association, and the Global City Teams Challenge.

A Smart City Digital Twin is a virtual platform that utilizes data and internet-of-things technology to replicate and emulate changes happening in a real city’s infrastructure systems to provide insight that could help improve sustainability, resilience and livability.

John Taylor, the Frederick Law Olmsted Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, published the first research paper on smart city digital twins in 2017 along with Neda Mohammadi, the city infrastructure analytics director of the Network Dynamics Lab at Georgia Tech. In just two years, interest and research on the topic has grown rapidly.

ABI Research predicts that there will be more than 500 smart city digital twins in operation by 2025

So what will that near future look like?  

Leaders in the field gathered at Georgia Tech recently to discuss the possibilities. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Smart City Digital Twin Convergence Workshop was held Sept. 16-17 at the Coda building in partnership with Stanford University, Columbia University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

The workshop brought together a hand-selected group of thought-leaders in the realm of smart city digital twins, representing eight municipal governments, three national laboratories, six industries and 17 universities with representatives from 15 disciplines.

The wide array of attendees underscores the interdisciplinary nature of the research, which has applications for engineers, data scientists, city planners, architects and more. 

“I think it really upholds what the National Science Foundation wanted to do here: putting smart people together to make amazing things happen,” said Debra Lam, managing director of smart cities and inclusive innovation at Georgia Tech. 

So what exactly is a digital twin?

The term is a concept borrowed from the manufacturing industry.

“It’s a bringing together of the virtual and the physical worlds, where you create a virtual version of the real-world system and you stream data into it,” Taylor said. “What the digital twin does is allow you to monitor how the system is performing, but importantly, it can also allow you to see potential issues that are coming up before they actually occur. And you can do scenario analysis and simulation with that data to determine what the future state might be.”

A static simulation will typically provide the same predictive future today that it would if you ran it again in a week. But a digital twin runs on real-time data, meaning that outcomes will vary based on conditions.

For example, Taylor’s lab built a digital twin of Georgia Tech’s campus that enables visualization of the energy consumption of each building. During a particularly hot week, the data will reflect the burden on buildings’ HVAC systems for that period of time. 

While there are many potential applications for digital twins, the NSF Smart City Digital Twin Convergence Workshop at Georgia Tech focused on research and application in three areas: mobility, water and energy infrastructure. 

Digital twins are still quite new, but many cities are using sensors and internet-of-things technology to move in the direction of a true digital twin. 

Representatives from the cities of Atlanta, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Ky., and Syracuse, N.Y. shared the way that they are utilizing smart city technology. 

Lillie Madali, the smart city director for the city of Atlanta, says Atlanta is working towards a digital twin that residents could access to view mobility data in real time. 

The program is employing a network of sensors and cameras to provide more complete data about vehicle and pedestrian traffic to make intersections safer. Madali says Atlanta’s focus is on bringing residents closer to their government through data and technology to improve equity. 

“We hope to use it to inform our policy and make streets safer for all modes of transportation,” Madali said. 

Andrew Schrock, founder of Aloi Research and Consulting and instructor at the University of Southern California, on ethically using technology and creating intersectionality and organizing for institutional reform. He also discussed the evolving definition of a smart city – from technology to political challenges.

Sheena Erete, assistant professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University on Designing Counter Structures: Taking an Assets-Based Approach to Designing Equitable Civic Technologies. Erete is using technology to address social issues such as equity and inclusion of resource-constrained communities.

Yoshiki Yamagata, principal researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, who discussed Urban Systems Design for Smart Communities in the IoT Era, and the use of big data for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yamagata examined how we can disseminate the usefulness of big data and AI techniques to society by establishing smart and sustainable communities.

In the afternoon, a panel of city, higher education, corporate and non-profit leaders discussed how academics can partner with other organizations around inclusion and equity.

Andrew Schrock, founder of Aloi Research and Consulting and instructor at the University of Southern California, on ethically using technology and creating intersectionality and organizing for institutional reform. He also discussed the evolving definition of a smart city – from technology to political challenges.

Sheena Erete, assistant professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University on Designing Counter Structures: Taking an Assets-Based Approach to Designing Equitable Civic Technologies. Erete is using technology to address social issues such as equity and inclusion of resource-constrained communities.

Yoshiki Yamagata, principal researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, who discussed Urban Systems Design for Smart Communities in the IoT Era, and the use of big data for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yamagata examined how we can disseminate the usefulness of big data and AI techniques to society by establishing smart and sustainable communities.

In the afternoon, a panel of city, higher education, corporate and non-profit leaders discussed how academics can partner with other organizations around inclusion and equity.

The symposium concluded on day two with keynote addresses followed by discussion from Beth Coleman, associate professor of English Language and Literature and co-director of the Critical Media Lab at the University of Waterloo, and Laura Forlano, associate professor, Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Tech Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation initiative, and Center for Computing and Society organized the symposium with funding from the Institute for People and Technology and the GVU Center.