Samir Saini, Chief Information Officer, City of Atlanta
Data is the new oil, and cities that know how to extract it will be the smartest cities in the world. Of course, it’s not just about the data—it’s about how you can take incoming data and transform it into actionable insights that will improve the quality of life within your city.
To do this, you need a data platform. Atlanta recently stood up an enterprise data platform for our city, and our experience can help other cities looking to do the same.
Data as a Means to Improve Quality of Life
The goal of gathering city data is to improve quality of life for city residents and visitors. This means that when you set up your platform, you must be conscious of the various ways you may be able to use that data to gain insights.
- Descriptive Analytics: Using data to know what happened and what is happening in your city.
- Diagnostics: Using data to understand why something happened.
- Predictive: Using data to predict what will happen in the future.
- Prescriptive: Using data to prescribe actual solutions that you can implement.
If your data platform can do all of these things, then you’re a smart city.
Building Your Platform for 5 Types of Customers
Once you stand up your data platform, you may wonder who your customers are—who will actually use the platform? We call these the five Cs.
1. City
The platform will be used as an urban operating system to produce insights and improve the efficiency of government services.
2. Citizens
An open data platform allows citizens to explore city data, which drives transparency and improves trust in government.
3. Civic Tech & Business Communities
Information from specific data sets can help businesses grow within your city.
4. Community Impact District
CIDs are the eyes and the ears of what is happening in the community. They can use the data to monitor what is happening in their community and to produce solutions to community problems.
5. Colleges and Universities
Schools can use the data for research purposes, and you can also create a mutually beneficial relationship where you gain advanced science and data analytic services from the school.
My advice to cities interested in creating a data platform is to look at these five Cs before and while you are building your platform. Think about how you could have this platform be shared across various entities because there are mutual benefits from each.
When you build the platform, also make sure that it has the ability to manage your IoT devices, manage information, store big data, conduct machine learning and advanced analytics, display dashboards and visualizations, and gain the intelligence you need. All that data is great, but it’s what you do with it that really matters.