Colorado Smart Cities Alliance Holds its Inaugural Symposium

Arrow would like to thank all members of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance,  the cities, private sector, academia and federal labs as well as Arrow partners who contributed and participated in the inaugural Colorado Smart Cities Symposium. It was an incredible event with international reach and our congratulations goes to the Colorado Technology Association and the leadership of the Alliance for making the event such a success.  Some great announcements were made which will lay a solid foundation for Colorado to collaborate and fast track development of its Smart Cities and Smart Regions, making our state a national showcase in digital transformation. We look forward to next year’s event to be an even bigger success.  

Three floors were jam packed with Smart City solutions from national and international companies from the private sector including members of the Alliance.

Arrow provided a Smart City Experience showcasing technologies and solutions, captured in this video, from Hitachi, Intel, Microsoft, Analogue Devices, Vicotee, VIMOC, DimOnOff, Touch Source and AT&T to resolve Smart City challenges such as: transportation and mobility; public safety; smart buildings; infrastructure; the environment and a section dedicated to the citizen – an imperative stakeholder in Smart Cities.

Many other private sector companies and members of the Alliance also showcased their Smart City technologies and solutions such as Cisco, HPE, Xcel, Zayo, DISH, LGS Innovations, Comcast plus many others with even a showcase from a Fortune 500 engineering and construction giant – AECOM. The Symposium drew great interest from the private sector and the choice of solutions for cities and regions was impressive, some of which were captured in this video.

The event was underpinned by four key themes for Smart Cities: Vision; Innovation; Insights and Leadership. These themes, some captured in this video, were led by leaders in their fields in experiences such as keynotes and panels. The Symposium caught the eye of the local and online media with some great coverage of the event.  You can find out more about the Symposium here.

As part of its global Open Lab strategy, Arrow was delighted to announce The Colorado Open Lab in partnership with the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance - who garnered support from Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade. This state-wide innovation eco-system, the first of its kind in the US, will guide and serve Alliance cities and regions across Colorado to deliver solutions that resolve their challenges of today and tomorrow. This unique and collaborative initiative will fast track digital transformation of Colorado cities and regions to become a Smart City and Smart Region. Arrow invites Alliance city members to “bring your toughest challenges”. Moreover, it is an open and collaborative eco-system and will bring together many of the different stakeholders within the Alliance (cities, private, academia, federal research) as well as the other labs and Smart City experimental sites (Living Labs) located across Colorado in order to create a comprehensive and inclusive state-wide Smart City innovation eco-system. Arrow Electronics and the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance will be talking more about the Colorado Open Lab at the next Civic Labs on Nov 9^th 2018.

The video also captures interviews from some of the co-founding, and private sector members of the Alliance, stating the importance of Smart Cities, their membership within the Alliance and why it is such an important initiative for the future of Colorado. 

Finally, the exciting announcement from Intel of a new global IEEE edge compute standard called “Ambient Science”. The Colorado Open Lab will be the global showcase of the development and trailing of Ambient Science technologies and solutions - guiding innovation forward for the next generation of ICT infrastructure and services for Colorado Smart Cities and Smart Regions. More on Ambient Science in the coming months.