Bloomberg and NYC as the Connected City

Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 02

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg can usually be spotted in the vanguard of progressive movements, so it came as no surprise yesterday when he announced the Connected City Initiative, a series of technology programs designed to make the Big Apple more livable. It’s a combination of enhancements to programs the city already has underway and new efforts. These include enhancing the city’s 311 Web site and making it accessible via an iPhone app (311 is the phone number that people call to report problems in the city), setting up an online self-help system for small businesses needing licenses and certificates, and extending the city’s electronic health records program, which already serves as a model for digital health records reform nationwide. Bloomberg also mentioned the city’s Big App contest: The city is opening up many of its records for programmers to write applications using the data. “We don’t know what we’ll get from it, but you have to find out. There a lot of smart people out there. You create a competition and you go for it,” he said in a press conference after his appearance at a “Smarter Cities” conference put on by IBM.

IBM and New York are already working together on a record keeping system for the NYFD and a data analysis project for the NYPD. IBM also announced yesterday that it’s going to locate an analytics center in Manhattan where 450 people will eventually be employed. The affinity between NYC and IBM is natural. Big Blue for many years had its headquarters in Manhattan, and its research labs got their start on the campus of Columbia University.

It will be interesting to see what develops here. IBM a couple of weeks ago announced “smarter cities” alliances with Dubuque, Iowa, and Shenyang, China. I wouldn’t be surprise if New York becomes the company’s next major strategic partner.

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