During 3-5 October 2017, Washington DC hosted the third annual Smart Cities Week, an event aimed at raising awareness towards the growing need for developing a smart infrastructure in order to make cities more adapted to the challenges of our age. The conference was mainly divided into four major categories:  connected and autonomous vehicles, infrastructure investment, networking and climate resilience.

The need for an updated smart infrastructure is viewed by experts as being of adamant importance, due to the impacts it has on matters such as: healthy living – by making cities cleaner, less polluted and congested; job creation – by creating a growing need for experts in fields such as energy, connectivity, computing, networking and others; and increased sustainability – by creating an environment which does not take away from future generations.

During the event in Washington DC, Philip Bane, managing director for the Smart Cities Council, acknowledged this need for change by saying “All the experts agree that our infrastructure is old, needing funding and deteriorating quickly”. Bane and other experts in the field realise that failing to adopt a smart infrastructure will eventually lead to a decreased competitive edge in favour of cities and countries that manage this transformation.

Experts in the field agree that the US is currently lagging behind in this perspective and that cities in Western Europe or, even more so, cities such as Singapore or Dubai are far ahead in this ‘race’. Events like Smart Cities Week bring experts and decision makers together and encourage collaboration. The results of such events can be seen in projects such as the one in Kansas City which is working with Cisco and is on route to become the Largest “Smart City” in North America.

Flashnet was invited to this event as a MachineQ key partner and sole supplier for lighting control. Its InteliLIGHT LoRaWAN compatible streetlight control solution was presented as one of the smart applications built to improve city management and street lighting efficiency. Deployed over a LoRaWAN™ compatible network developed by MachineQ, inteliLIGHT® is only one of the available services that can be integrated into smart city designs.

Part of the worldwide IoT revolution, machineQ is working to build the LoRaWAN™ ecosystem in the US. Currently, they provide 100% LoRaWAN™ coverage in the City of Philadelphia and 50%+ in the outlying areas.  The fast-paced coverage is aiming for 50% coverage in the Bay Area and Chicago within the next two months, with plans to multiply their efforts and bring even more cities into the world of IoT.

Furthermore, machineQ is encouraging local IoT business initiatives and Smart City startups. LoRaWAN® is affordable to install and operate, shortening the time-to-market and lowering the market penetration barriers for IoT companies. Using LoRaWAN™, there is a shorter way from idea to final product, and machineQ is supporting business initiatives and technology communities to invest in IoT development by hosting LoRa™ hackathons and funding startups transitioning to or already using LoRaWAN™.