Posted by
Nicole Catapano in
In the current climate of local, state, and federal accountability amidst many economic challenges, K-12 school districts are often left to fix new and ongoing problems with little or no resources. At the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services (WSWHE BOCES), we aim to assist school districts in identifying concerns before they become problems, and utilizing limited resources in the most efficient and effective ways.
In 2009, WSWHE BOCES Data Analysis Services began offering predictive analytics assistance to the 31 component school districts that serve more than 42,000 students in upstate New York. Through data modeling, our office helps district staff weed through years of data housed in many different places to discover the most significant predictors that will guide student learning. Using IBM analytics software, this process can be updated on a regular basis and new data can be incorporated to improve model accuracy and predictor selection.
The result for districts is that they are able to focus on skills that have the biggest impact on overall performance for certain students. Data conversations are streamlined and resources can be allotted for materials or training that will help teachers address the skill areas identified. Also, working with sharper focus, teachers and administrators are able to coordinate efforts across grade levels – assisting students as they advance through school and transition to post-secondary pursuits.
The main objectives of this work are to increase student achievement on annual assessments and improve graduation rates. Early results are promising. After one district targeted early literacy across four elementary schools for one year, English Language Arts proficiency among third graders increased from 56 percent to 71 percent.
As more school districts implement strategies based on predictive analytics, the positive impact on student learning outcomes will become more apparent, and stakeholders will agree that district expenditures have been allocated to yield the most successful results.
Nicole Catapano, Ph.D., is the Data Analysis Coordinator for the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services in upstate New York.
Related Resources:
Download the WSWHE BOCES Predictive Analytics Case Study
New Technology Helps Ontario Food Banks Deliver
The World Environment Center just awarded its annual Gold Medal award for International Corporate Achievement in Sustainable Development to IBM. The company was recognized for its commitment to advancing environmental sustainability and for providing business solutions in support of more sustainable cities and the planet.
IBM RECEIVES TOP SUSTAINABILITY AWARD FROM WORLD ENVIRONMENT CENTER--IBM Chairman Samuel J. Palmisano, right, accepted the World Environment Center Gold Medal for International Corporate Achievement in Sustainable Development for IBM's corporate environmental efforts and smarter cities technology at the National Building Museum on Thursday, May 3, 2012 in Washington DC. IBM is the first company to receive the award twice, having also been the 1990 recipient. Also pictured are (L-R) Dr. Terry F. Yosie, President and CEO, World Environment Center, and Ronald Daniels, President, Johns Hopkins University. (Feature Photo Service)
The importance of environmental sustainability has exploded in recent years. It is implanted in the minds of leaders no matter what aspect of business, government or society they serve. But to be realistic, it hasn’t always been this way.
The broad popularity of environmental sustainability has been cyclical since the first
Earth Day back in 1970. If the sustainability of our planet is indeed a future imperative, a relevant question for any organization is: How do you sustain sustainability over the long term?
At IBM, environmental leadership has been practiced regardless of its popularity or the company’s financial performance at any given point in time. Environmental sustainability is managed as a strategic imperative. We work to anticipate opportunities and prevent problems. Underlying this commitment is a conviction that good environmental management makes good business sense.
In fact, this was the first time in the WEC Gold Medal’s 28 year history that a company has earned it twice (IBM had previously received the award in 1990). We do indeed work hard to sustain sustainability.
For global institutions at large, I am certainly encouraged. That’s because the next generation is far more passionate about environmental sustainability than any other in recent memory. We’re on the front edge of a new wave of leaders who want to perform work that not only delivers a return to shareholders, but also who want to perform work that is good for society. It’s a generation that thinks not just about stockholders, but also stakeholders.
From where I sit, I see opportunity for institutions to capitalize on insights from data analytics gleaned from our instrumented and interconnected world. Today’s leaders are blazing the trail and making systems – such as physical infrastructure – more efficient, intelligent and sustainable. It’s happening throughout the world because such innovation delivers not only environmental benefit, but also value and competitive advantage. And this can help the world sustain sustainability.
The good news is that the key requirement for real change now exists: People want it.
And they are hungry for leadership. Such a moment doesn’t come around often – perhaps a few times every century – and it will not last forever. Those seizing it today are the leaders of tomorrow. I am convinced that the forward-thinking individuals, communities, companies and countries of the world can build a smarter, more secure and more sustainable planet.
Wayne Balta is IBM’s Vice President for Corporate Environmental Affairs and Product Safety. A version of this article first appeared on WhiteHouse.gov.
Related Articles:
While The Philippines is one country, it encompasses more than 7,000 islands and has a very complex political system. Cebu – one of The Philippines’ major metropolitan areas – has a host of beautiful natural attractions, a population with excellent English language skills, and some big goals. Cebu wants to transform itself into a major tourist and call center destination.
Having a goal is an essential first step toward progress, but all stakeholders need to be onboard. “Metro Cebu” is made up of 13 cities/municipalities that share the goal of making their island a destination, but with more than 13 political leaders supporting their local constituents, setting priorities that benefit the whole has been a challenge. Some cities are primarily concerned with flooding. Others are focused on the type of infrastructure development that could strengthen their economies, but need to consider the potential impact on surrounding cities by creating new, unplanned water, transportation, and waste management needs. Cebu needed an integrated strategy to start planning in an effective manner, so IBM stepped in to help.
In June 2011, an IBM Corporate Service Corps team deployed to Cebu to help city leaders prioritize the issues that needed to be addressed to help Metro Cebu achieve its goals. The group’s two top priorities turned out to be:
- Land use planning and zoning, and
- Traffic and transportation management
In September 2011, IBM’s Executive Service Corps team came to Cebu to advance those two key topics. When the team arrived it was clear that Cebu had created a very committed and forward-thinking council to help address intercity issues. One thing that wasn’t clear, however, was how the council would govern. The members of the Metropolitan Cebu Development Coordinating Board (MCDCB) includes 13 mayors, the governor of the Province of Cebu, representatives from the private sector and a very well respected foundation, and a selection of important governmental department heads. Unfortunately, the council has neither the authority to enact legislation nor the funding to move forward with coordinated plans. In response, we expanded the scope of our engagement to include recommendations on governance.
Looking Ahead
IBM’s recommendations helped strengthen the influence of the MCDCB as it communicated the importance of integrated, collaborative planning. In addition to gaining support throughout the region, the Board also needed to motivate and mobilize its volunteer membership to prioritize common needs and drive results through the political process.
After an intense three weeks of fact-finding and collaboration, we made the following recommendations to Cebu’s municipal leadership:
- Evaluate existing Consolidated Land Use plans and integrate them into an accepted Geographic Information Systems (GIS) platform to identify and address potential points of conflict and areas for collaboration. A robust GIS system enables map building to indicate sources of tax revenue, the locations of cultural attractions, and key infrastructure assets to give decision makers a consolidated view of the region’s challenges and opportunities.
- Collaborate with Telco providers to pinpoint the locations of mobile phone users, thereby allowing Cebu to model traffic patterns and develop solutions to ease transportation issues like ensuring effective emergency response management – turning data into useful information to improve the quality of life of Cebu’s citizens.
- Clarify roles and decision making processes in order to promote a culture of responsibility, progress, and trust.
It was hard to imagine that our team could have an impact on decades-old problems after just three weeks. But expertise and a fresh perspective always have the potential to raise awareness and help point people in the right direction. Bringing one’s professional and personal experiences to bear in a part of the world that is striving for change is incredibly rewarding.
Robin Selber is a Director of Integrated Technology Services focused on Public Sector, Communications Sector and General Business Clients with IBM Global Technology Services.
Related Articles:
Developing Global Leaders for the 21st Century
The Can Tho Connection: Corporate Service Corps/Vietnam
Executive Service Corps, Johannesburg: Anatomy of an Engagement
Posted by
Leslie Plant in
In 2011, IBM very generously awarded the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB) with a grant valued at $250,000 to develop and implement a new online tool that would improve food distribution to those in need across the province. After thousands of donated hours from IBM staff, the Smarter Needs Allocation Program was developed and launched in December 2011. Nearly 120 food banks across Ontario are now using a new online food distribution system to help put donated food onto hungry families’ plates – faster and more efficiently.
In providing this assistance, IBM chose to work on a limited number of high impact projects per year. The company’s strategic philanthropy goals focused on projects in education, workforce development, smarter cities, and in particular helping to reinforce a smarter social safety net. The emphasis was on projects where IBM could leverage its skills and technology to help the not-for-profit sector improve its business processes, run more effectively, and deliver better services at lower cost – stretching precious resources as far as possible.
The OAFB grant was borne of relationships IBM and IBMers had in their local communities. In this case, employees in Ottawa had a long relationship with some local food banks, and the conversation and idea evolved from there.
IBM provided the OAFB with the technology and expertise to create a software program that efficiently manages the coordination of donations to each of its member food banks. IBMers worked with OAFB staff to develop and deploy the Food Bank Allocation System – Canada’s first. The program features the following advantages:
- Food distribution among all Ontario food banks is faster, more efficient, and more equitable.
- Ontario now can record and track expiration and “best before” dates to improve food safety and address potential product recalls.
- A feedback loop enabling food banks to report on the quality of donations has helped OAFB decline unsuitable donations and address transportation delays.
The OAFB manages a huge flow of food to Ontarians each year – more than eight million pounds of food, including one million liters of fresh milk. Distribution was previously coordinated through phone calls, faxes and emails. But instead of relying on uncoordinated data to make food allocation decisions, the new online system accesses past account inventory information to determine where the greatest needs lie.
For example, the system will take into account the last time a particular food bank received an allocation, the expiration date of that supply, and the expiration date of a new supply that’s ready to be distributed. The system also can determine the proximity of donation sources to various food bank destinations to minimize transportation costs and environmental impact.
The program has already generated beneficial results – making food distribution in Ontario transparent, efficient and equitable, and dramatically improving the OAFB’s ability to distribute food to its members.
Leslie Plant is an External Communications Manager with IBM. A version of this article originally appeared in Hunger eNews.
Download the OAFB reports “Combating Hunger” and “Running on Empty: A Decade of Hunger in Ontario”.
How can information technology (IT) and data analytics help cities provide better qualities of life for their residents? Can a smarter approach to sustainability serve as a foundation to corporate social responsibility? Carnegie Mellon civil and environmental engineering professor James Garrett comments below on the connections among IT, data analytics, and building a smarter planet.
At a recent conference on computing in civil and building engineering, I made the point that the most pressing challenge for infrastructure over the coming years will be to determine more effective approaches to spending the least amount of money to deliver the highest quality services.
Consistent with IBM’s Smarter Planet vision, I see a huge role for information technology (IT) in addressing this challenge. We need to move to a model where the delivery, maintenance and management of roads, buildings, bridges, pipelines and other infrastructure is highly predictive and proactive, and where information is relatively cheap
to collect.
For example, data on the physical condition of a specific bridge can be collected from a combination of sources, including the data from vehicles that drive over them, weather databases – and any sensors on the bridge, including those used for purposes such as deicing. This data can be analyzed and interpreted, and then used to understand the current state of the specific bridge in addition to the trends and true causes of accelerated deterioration of that bridge.
This analysis will lead to a better understanding of how, how fast, and for what reasons a bridge is deteriorating, and will much better inform agencies about what actions to take.
It will also inform future design cycles and thus avoid similar problems.
Actual data could make it much easier to increase public support for more governmental funding for maintenance and upkeep. Until we make our processes for assessing and maintaining our infrastructure more rational and effective, it will be difficult to make the case to the public that they should allocate more money for repairs and improvements.
The Role of Technology
Our biggest challenge related to the role of IT is building predictive models of the usage, condition and trends of our infrastructure. IT can be based on extremely large quantities of actual data captured – or soon to be captured – from the thousands of infrastructure systems currently in use. However, drowning our infrastructure providers in data will make matters much worse than better. If they are not provided high-quality information and models of the current and future condition of their infrastructure systems – whether pipe networks, road networks, or bridges, fused from the many different sources of collected data in order to help them make decisions – they might as well not have the collected data in the first place.
Instead, we need data-driven, intelligent and automatic decision support tools that help highway departments, water authorities and other infrastructure service providers make the best use of every dollar they spend. In other words, such a system will make the management and operation of our infrastructure much more sustainable.
As engineers, we still face many challenges in our attempts to move toward this envisioned support for infrastructure providers. When it comes to maintaining our infrastructure, we cannot afford to continue business as usual. This has been made clear by continued infrastructure deterioration despite extremely large amounts of funding dedicated to its upkeep. Replacement without concurrent commitment to changing the management process is a short-sighted solution. It will only push the crisis 20 years further out.
James H. Garrett Jr., Ph.D., is Thomas Lord Professor and Department Head,
Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Carnegie Mellon University, and Faculty Co-Director of the Pennsylvania Smarter Infrastructure Incubator. Dr. Garrett also consults with government agencies and private sector companies on how to use sensors, data management and modeling, and analytics and intelligent decision support to manage infrastructure systems more sustainably.
Posted by
Chester Karwatowski in
“Charity alone will not solve the world’s problems. Capitalism can help
and at the same time put people back to work.”
– President Bill Clinton, January 2012
“No one institution can change a complex system by itself.”
– Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School
Supplier Connection connects small business suppliers to large business buyers efficiently and effectively, while providing business value to all members of the community.
As soon as people hear about Supplier Connection, they get it. Imagine a student applying to college. The student fills out one application, a “Common College Application,” and multiple colleges will accept that application for consideration. Colleges maintain their unique selection processes, but have agreed on a streamlined, simpler and more efficient process. That is the starting point for one of the most exciting and important transformation projects that I have ever worked on.
“The process doesn’t exist today. There are no requirements. Many of the potential users are competitors. What can you do in three months?”
That was the challenge the IBM Foundation presented to a small group of IBM Supply Chain, Transformation and Technology experts in the summer of 2010. The reason was significant: U.S. unemployment was at a 25 year high, over 9.5 percent for much of the year. And there was a global financial crisis threatening to make things worse. Action was required. That call to action was compelling. Everyone who was engaged quickly realized how important this endeavor was. The challenge was great. Supplier Connection was a transformation science project! We had lots of study-based hypotheses with assumptions that we now needed to prove. I had spent my career at IBM solving vexing technical and business problems through the use of technology, complex analytics and a myriad of change-leadership techniques. But I had never experienced a project that needed more than one company to change its behavior; we needed dozens, perhaps hundreds!
Valentine’s Day, 2011
Five months after we started, we went live with Supplier Connection! We were now able to provide a “common supplier application” to small businesses. Valentine’s Day was apropos for the launch. When you go to a dance, you hope there is someone there that wants to dance with you! We were certain we could get suppliers to join, but we needed buyers at our dance! Program Manager John Dischinger was tireless in pitching the concept to CEOs, CPOs, government organizations and NGOs. It was a simple story: channel some of your existing spending to small businesses. We can help you to find suppliers you’ll like with our registration process and analytic tools. There are more than nine million small businesses in the U.S., and our mission is to help identify them, enable them, and connect them with the supply chains of large corporations.
Supply Chain “match making”
Similar to social match making, business-to-business “match making” is emerging as a process that successfully leverages social business technologies and tools. One business (buyer) seeks another business (supplier) for commerce (or vise versa). Going to an external community for this process of sharing profiles and applications and finding partners makes sense to both buyers and suppliers who have a shared vision and objective for the community.
The idea is contagious. And…you mean I can join for free?
Never before have I experienced the kind of emotional connection to a project that I have with Supplier Connection. Everyone on the team feels it. Everyone is proud to be working so hard on something so important. But we need your help. We are looking for volunteers to help us reach out to small businesses, attend match-making events in person, inform small businesses about Supplier Connection, mentor suppliers, and help us build a stronger community. If you respond to this blog, we will reach out and connect with you.
Yes, Supplier Connection is free! IBM Foundation President Stan Litow was very clear in his vision for Supplier Connection. The program is free and open to all suppliers and all buyers who commit to this shared vision of connecting small businesses with economic opportunities for growth. And the idea is contagious and growing. We now have 15 Fortune 100 companies who are part of the Supplier Connection consortium: AMD, AT&T, Bank of America, Caterpillar, Citigroup, DELL, Facebook, IBM, John Deere, JPMorgan Chase, Kellogg Company, Office Depot, Pfizer, UPS, and Wells Fargo. These companies represent more than $300 billion in buying potential.
More large companies will soon be joining us. On March 22, we announced a significant new partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration. SBA Administrator Karen Mills has invited more than 50,000 suppliers to join the Supplier Connection consortium. And as more businesses join, our opportunities to demonstrate the value of this simple concept with broad socially-responsible implications will continue to grow.
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member Chester Karwatowski is the CTO and Business Architect for Supplier Connection, an IBM Foundation-led initiative designed to spur job growth in the U.S. Follow Chester on Twitter.
Related Resources:
Article: Facebook Connects with Supplier Connection
SBA Administrator Karen Mills: Making it Easier for Small Businesses
to Make it in America
Video: Perspectives on Supplier Connection
Posted by
Kirsten Schroeder in
Through years of consulting on education issues for state departments of education and local school districts, I’ve witnessed the challenges of implementing educational programs designed to connect high school graduates to college and career. Today’s economic environment – coupled with evolving global competition for jobs – has intensified the pressure on cities and states hoping to grow and sustain their economies by developing a sustainable pipeline of qualified workers.
To build a robust pipeline of in-demand workers, educators and city leaders must work together to deliver affordable, quality education. In turn, the presence of a well-trained workforce strengthens local economies by attracting and retaining competitive employers. Chicago’s leaders understand this challenge, and embarked on a bold examination of their own educational systems – the Chicago Public Schools, the City Colleges of Chicago, and other education and training providers. Their goal was to develop a strategy to realign educational resources, develop a more educated workforce, and attract more jobs to the city.
Enabled by an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant, the City of Chicago pursued its core strategic initiative to forge public-private partnerships between employers and educational institutions. Such partnerships would be essential to identifying needed workforce skills, targeting school curricula to address those needs, and connecting the city’s graduates to meaningful careers. Chicago’s leaders were particularly inspired by IBM’s partnership with the New York City Department of Education and The City University of New York to develop a grades nine through 14 schools model to connect education to industry.
This innovative model – implemented last September at the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) – was designed specifically to create a pipeline from high school to college to employment. Working together to ensure the success of P-TECH graduates, the public and private sectors developed a rigorous and relevant STEM-focused curriculum (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) that culminates with the associate degree; reinforced learning with mentor/protégé relationships for all students and faculty; and will make sure that P-TECH graduates are first in line for job consideration at IBM.
Chicago used its Smarter Cities Challenge grant to pursue two goals:
- Develop a strategic plan to integrate career and technical education
- Create a guide – the Roadmap for Career and Technical Education – to opening grades nine through 14 schools
The city is moving ahead with its plan to open five new P-TECH-model schools, each in partnership with a private-sector sponsor.
My six team members and I collaborated with civic and education leaders for three months to develop Chicago’s strategic plan. Starting in October 2011, we conducted a series of interviews to develop an understanding of the existing career and technical education service providers and the needs of the communities they served. We wanted to learn about existing programs, any projected changes, and the challenges that stood between the schools and their goal to deliver quality educational services to students.
To supplement our interviews, we conducted a high-level data analysis of the city’s workforce skills and projected demands. This analysis was critical to determining the industry focus areas of the five new schools – information technology, health care, transportation & logistics, advanced manufacturing, and hospitality. Our analysis confirmed those industries as the most high potential forChicago’s workforce, and mapped the connection between anticipated industry needs and current degree and certificate programs in the city’s education system.
The new playbook that we developed jointly with city and education leaders will serve as the template for deploying the grades nine through 14 schools model. Based on our work, Chicago is now able to develop the five schools to focus specifically on employers’ anticipated needs for a skilled workforce. This model of affordable, quality education will help meet the city’s need for economic growth, and will serve as a blueprint for other cities and communities that need to build a pipeline from education to jobs.
Kirsten Schroeder is a Partner in the K-12 National Practice component of IBM’s Global Services Division. Ms. Schroeder specializes in the development and implementation of business systems as well as business process redesign for public sector clients.
Download the “STEM Pathways to College and Careers Schools: A Development Guide” playbook.
Download the Grades 9-14 Chicago and IBM School Partnership fact sheet.
Related Resources:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel: Building a Smarter Chicago
U.S. News & World Report: Grades 9 Through 14 School Model Strengthens Education-to-Work System
Smarter Cities Challenge, Chicago: Contributing Expertise to Build Sustainable Value
Student Perspective: How P-TECH Inspired New Hope After Just One Semester
Student Perspective: Switching to a Grades 9-14 School
Posted by
Ronald Gordon in
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by Tom Erickson and Susan Spraragen |
In the fall of 2011, a team of six IBM experts spent three weeks in Helsinki as part of IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge program. The program brings together an interdisciplinary team to focus on a challenge faced by a city. In the case of Helsinki, the City wanted to make the most of two opportunities. One was that Helsinki had just begun to implement an open data strategy to make city data available to its citizens. The second was Helsinki’s selection as the 2012 World Design Capital, a biennial event that promotes cities that are using design to improve their social, cultural and economic life. Helsinki saw the potential for synergy between these two opportunities, and thought that IBM’s expertise in managing and visualizing data might help make its data more accessible to citizens, and provide interesting examples for the World Design Capital events.
The project began with a non-stop series of meetings with stakeholders: politicians, city employees, private companies and ordinary citizens. Our aim was to understand the issues that concerned citizens, and develop relationships with stakeholders who could help us. We spent the first week assembling a picture of Helsinki’s open data strategy and getting a sense of its diverse and vibrant design culture. As we moved into our second week, we began working with local stakeholders.
We had set ourselves two tasks. The first was to develop concrete examples of ways in which visualization could make city data more accessible to Helsinki’s citizens. One point we emphasized was that visualization is not just about producing cool pictures. A good visualization is a catalyst that can encourage thinking, discussion, contribution and interaction, and this means that it needs to be part of a larger system that supports this activity. We spent a day at Aalto University’s Design Factory, where we asked thirty locals – students, faculty, technologists and ordinary citizens – to develop ideas for systems that created or used open data. We drew on these ideas, along with those developed in other meetings, to develop a portfolio of design examples that ranged from visualizing the workings of the bureaucracy, to systems for participatory planning, to public displays of the city mood.
Our second task was to develop a roadmap for Helsinki’s open data strategy. Here we had a firm foundation to start from, as Helsinki was already off to a strong start. We laid out different engagement and business models for the open data strategy, and discussed ways to support the evolution of an open data ecosystem. We also discussed ways in which the move to open data would transform the city government by creating new roles, fostering standards and encouraging transparency.
We hope it is evident that throughout the Challenge, our work was carried out in collaboration with an enormously vibrant and talented array of people from Helsinki. While a global team can bring expertise from the outside, ultimately technology is applied in the context of the local culture, and that means that there is no substitute for collaboration.
Tom Erickson is an interaction designer and researcher in IBM Research. His focus is on improving communication and collaboration among large numbers of people.
Susan Spraragen is a service design researcher in IBM Research. Susan focuses on enabling the investigation of the relationships between service providers and service consumers.
Further Resources:
City of Helsinki Economic and Planning Centre announcement
IBM Smarter Cities Challenge Helsinki Report
Global Open Data Programme Makes Recommendations for Helsinki
Helsingin Kaupungin Avoimen Datan Hyodyntamisraportti Julki
Helsinki ja IBM Puristavat Avoimesta Datasta Hyotya Kaikille
Maailmanlaajuisesta avoimen datan ohjelmasta suosituksia Helsingille
Recommendations of the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge Programme completed
Posted by
Dan Hebrank in
When we typically see a news report about the St. Louis Police, it is about them responding to a crime on an ongoing investigation. That’s why it was so refreshing to see Fox’s coverage of steps the city is making to reduce crime in our city.
And this wasn’t the first time the city has talked publically about reducing the crime rates. Just before the holidays, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Dan Isom delivered his crime report to the Board of Police Commissioners. The report was promising, stating that crime had dropped 40 percent over the last five years.
This is no small feat for a city that, until recently, was labeled as the “most dangerous city in America.” Chief Isom followed up the good news by announcing with a recommendation for the city and his department to partner with the University of Missouri–St. Louis’ Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice to with a goal of seeing those numbers drop even more.
Richard Rosenfeld, Curators’ Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, will lead the charge at the university staring during the 2012-13 academic school year. He will focus on identifying best practices of metropolitan police departments and work with other agencies to ensure the downward crime rate continues. But this won’t just be an academic exercise. UMSL criminologists will work in St. Louis Police Headquarters, directly with police officers to help implement and evaluate crime reduction initiatives.
While St. Louis is like most other cities in its goal to reduce crime and make its city safer,
I think it is fair to say that it has taken it more seriously than most. In fact, under the leadership of Mayor Francis G. Slay, the city engaged IBM to take advantage of IBM expertise to improve public safety outcomes through better information management through the company’s Smarter Cities Challenge.
After an extensive review of the city’s policies, IBM provided the city with a roadmap that includes coordination of business process and flows of data throughout the public safety system, and identified opportunities for accountability and cost-savings through performance management, analytics asset management, operational streamlining and policy changes. Specifically, IBM’s overarching message is: Public safety is connected to virtually every city issue from housing and education to economic development and the social safety net. So all these systems must be aligned if the city is to prevent crime rather than react to it. The city must renew its focus on using data to track, analyze and predict outcomes across the range of city systems.
By partnering with academics and businesses that have a vested interest in seeing St. Louis become a safer city, I think our city is on track to move from being one of the most dangerous cities to becoming one of the safest.
Posted by
Kerrie Holley in
Imagine being asked to live and collaborate for three weeks with six people you have never met. Factor in a problem that has to be solved in less than 30 days. And not just any problem, but one that matters – with a potential solution that could make a huge difference for a city and its citizens. I had the opportunity to face this challenge as part of an IBM team working with the City of New Orleans.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu delineated the city’s problems to us directly in our first meeting: New Orleans needs a 21st century government with active community partnering, data-informed decision making, and an outcome-based culture. The mayor, the city’s workers and the city’s residents share the same clear vision. New Orleans is a great city that can – and should – be even better.
Our challenge was to determine how to use information technology as a catalyst for transforming New Orleans into a great city. Our standard was the 4Cs of City Greatness. New Orleans already is Cosmopolitan and has loads of Charisma – two of the Cs that make a city great. What the Smarter Cities Challenge team was there to help develop were the remaining two Cs:
- Currency – New Orleans’ ability to shape the world through economic impact;
- Concentration – New Orleans’ transformation into a vibrant city without urban blight, where all neighborhoods thrive with life.
But for New Orleans to realize its potential, the city’s leaders had to stop governing “in the dark.” Cities, like companies, must get smarter if they hope to thrive. And New Orleans’ residents and municipal workers recognized the transformational power of information to unearth new opportunities. They understood how smarter data management could help them affect organizational change. They wanted to transform their city into one in which information sharing exists so that citizens can hear and see what is going on in their neighborhoods.
Our primary recommendation required a foundation that would promote data sharing to create a new supply chain of information. This information supply chain would allow data to flow freely – enabling community leaders and citizens to view the progress and outcomes of government programs. Through the intelligent use of data, the people of New Orleans would be able to benchmark and track improvements in the city’s infrastructure, education system, and public safety.
Next, the Smarter Cities team provided an action-oriented report – a blueprint for how New Orleans can create the information supply chain needed to help realize the city’s vision for its future. The blueprint will help New Orleans improve its approach to becoming an outcome-based culture, and will enable data-informed decision making with active community partnering. The Smarter Cities report shows how New Orleans’ vision of becoming a smarter city can become a reality.
Related Article:
New Orleans’ Comeback: Six Years After Katrina, Tech to Help the City Run Better
