Las Vegas’s Chief Innovation Officer, Michael Sherwood, revealed to Computer Weekly how Vegas is enforcing the internet of things (IoT) to work besides American multinational technology conglomerate, Cisco, to help reduce duplicate services.
With 42 million tourists visiting Vegas each year, whilst being a home of 650,000 citizens, Sherwood hopes to “build a community to make life better for our citizens”.
Cisco’s digital platform called Smart+Connected has been designed to help tourism and residents find their way around and achieve ‘simple tasks’, by erasing any complications regarding sensors delivering different data to separate systems.
“This is a very large city as far as tourism goes and we have residents as well. It is important that we provide seamless experiences for them,” said Sherwood.
Building technology ecosystems
In hope to build a safer city, Sherwood is hoping to act upon and analyse data faults by using IoT to guide people to different places safely, which includes checking the amount of vehicles travelling through lightening systems, checking the quantity of people walking and driving, and by studying ‘alternative routes’.
“It’s all about experience. What we’re trying to do is build a technology ecosystem to help that, and data is a huge part. Now, with this intelligence architecture, we can see how people use the streets,” announced Sherwood.
“Cisco is giving us that alarm system that says something is out of whack, whether that’s traffic back flow or whether there’s a backpack left behind. Those types of analytics change the dynamics of how cities operate,” he added.
The government has also installed digital Automated External Defibrillator (AED) in parks that automatically contact emergency services when being used, and data projects are in place to control traffic lights where there is traffic build-up that may affect air quality.
Written by Leah Alger
