Owen Key, chief security officer, city of Calgary, Ontario, Canada

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When it comes to coordinating public safety surveillance, the smartest option is now clearly IP. At least that has been the experience of Owen Key, the chief security officer for the city of Calgary, Canada. He should know.

Seven years ago when he first joined the city, Calgary had dozens of separate video surveillance systems keeping watch on everything from swimming pools and city buildings to river levels and roadways. Key, a former consultant with KPMG’s forensic division, says advances in software and hardware now make it relatively simple to tie together existing, proprietary analog cameras with newer Internet protocol (IP) ones. In Calgary’s case, the city used technology from IndigoVision to bring together its menagerie of more than 700 cameras onto one central management system.

Key says Calgary’s IP-based surveillance network now also make it possible to integrate video from both analog and IP cameras into its data warehouse, helping enrich interactive mapping and other innovative city management applications.

In this installment of the Smart+Connected Communities Institute podcast Learning Series, I speak with Key about how IP networking has aided Calgary’s public safety efforts.

Dave Carter, head of the Manchester Digital Development Agency

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In the 1980s the city of Manchester, England, was in crisis. As one of the world’s first industrial powers, its end of days was upon it. Factory after factory was closing, leaving behind vast swaths of urban blight and as much as 50 percent unemployment in some areas.

To rebuild Manchester for a new economic era, the city turned to technology. The results have been impressive. What was once the poster-child for industrial despair, Manchester is now routinely cited as one of the world’s most progressive digital centers and ranks only second to London for employment in information technology in the United Kingdom.

While technology was just one factor in Manchester’s regeneration and challenges for the city certainly remain, unemployment rates and derelict areas are now only a fraction of what they were in the 1980s.

Leading Manchester’s digital efforts is Dave Carter, head of the Manchester Digital Development Agency. Carter, a former historian, has used equal measures of idealistic optimism and dogged practicality to put digital technology to great economic use. His efforts recently earned him the prestigious Founders Award from the Intelligent Community Forum. In this installment of the Smart+Connected Communities Learning Series, I speak with Carter about how Manchester has applied digital technology to spur economic and social renewal

Nearly 40 percent of Copenhagen citizens commute to work or school.

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Internationally renowned Gehl Architects is an architectural practice with a difference: Under the direction of famed architect and urban design consultant Jan Gehl, the Danish firm doesn’t design buildings, but focuses instead on bridging the “software of cities” – culture and behavior – with the “hardware of cities” – spaces and infrastructure. Front and center in all the firm’s design considerations is that most important component of any city: the human being.

Gehl Architects’ unique approach has made the firm a much sought-after consultant among cities around the globe, including its home base of Copenhagen, which is famed for its environmental progressiveness, bicycle culture and all-around quality of life. For more insight into the firm’s philosophy and how it’s helping to shape Copenhagen and other cities, Smart+Connected Communities Institute caught up with Gehl Architects associate Jeff Risom.

Jeff Risom, an associate at Gehl Architects in Copenhagen

Susan Anderson, Director of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability in Portland, Oregon.

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When it comes to sustainable urban planning, the Pacific northwestern city of Portland got a head start over the competition.

As early as 1973, the state of Oregon took a stand against urban sprawl by mandating cities to concentrate urban development within an urban growth boundary (UGB). Since then, Portland in particular has secured a reputation as one of the greenest, most progressive cities in the world, with a pedestrian-friendly core, a well-used light rail system, and abundant trees and parks. For details of the city’s vision and strategy for sustainability, how the UGB approach has stood the test of time, and what lessons the city has learned along the way, Smart+Connected Communities Institute caught up with Susan Anderson, director of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

Portland, Oregon, has been called one of the greenest cities in the world.

Ruud Dekkers, Senior Executive Manager at Solar Millennium in Germany

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Solar power still only accounts for a tiny portion of energy use worldwide, but a variety of fascinating initiatives are in the works, or already underway, around the globe.

Germany’s “feed-in tariff” program, which requires utilities to pay homeowners and businesses above-market rates for producing solar electricity, has made that country a world leader in solar energy. But the approach, which is starting to show up in the United States, is not without its challenges. Meanwhile, massive projects that aim to draw solar energy from the deserts of North Africa to power Europe – part of the Desertec Industrial Initiative – are gathering momentum.

For insights into these and other initiatives, as well as an overview of the difference between solar thermal power technologies and photovoltaics, Smart+Connected Communities Institute spoke with Ruud Dekkers, senior executive manager at Solar Millennium in Germany.