---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 5:58 AM Subject: IBM "Smarter City" ? - can we collaborate with IBM for p2p OpenSource/Libre solutions ? To: [email protected] Does any of you know - or is any of you involved in the IBM Smarter City Program ? some links : http://www.thesmartercity.com/ http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_cities/cities/index.html I am looking forward to distributed approaches, and this kind of planning and urban emergency response project looks pretty centralized till now http://www.fastcompany.com/1712443/building-a-smarter-favela-ibm-signs-up-ri... Could IBM and the Rio de Janeiro politicians be interested in supporting open source / libre software , and empower populations for their own p2p shared and accessible data by all and for all, as to enable response to "mudslides and floods"... IBM has an understanding of OpenSource approaches... * * *http://www.ibm.com/ibm/governmentalprograms/ipossw.html* *excerpt :* * * *Policy IBM believes that open source software should be leveraged as a part of a national IT architecture but open standards are the true facilitators of a smarter, more agile and transparent government.* To whom will the "multi-billion upgrade" benefit ? Perhaps such projects already exist ? In this case, I have the impression it sounds pretty centralized... but I am not sure if they will use closed standards, closed databases, and centralized "control rooms"... ----------------------- http://www.fastcompany.com/1712443/building-a-smarter-favela-ibm-signs-up-ri... Building a Smarter Favela: IBM Signs Up RioBY GREG LINDSAY<http://www.fastcompany.com/user/159824>Mon Dec 27, 2010 A new operations center features an impressive high-tech centerpiece--a weather forecasting system built atop IBM Research’s “Deep Thunder” software and tailored to Rio’s climate and topography. IBM is announcing this morning an agreement with the city of Rio de Janeiro to build a “Single City Operations Center,” or what amounts to a control room for the sprawling megalopolis. The center will draw upon data from dozens of municipal departments and public agencies. While the system will initially focus on predicting the kinds of mudslides and floods that killed hundreds last April<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2010_Rio_de_Janeiro_floods_and_mudslides> and left 15,000 homeless, it’s designed, ultimately, to monitor and respond to any type of emergency--just in time for the city to host both the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The deal is IBM’s most ambitious smarter city project to date; previous efforts have tended to be single-purpose programs in developed cities, such as a congestion pricing scheme for London or water management in Dubuque. But Rio is a different situation--a bona fide megacity in one of the world’s fastest growing economies, in the midst of a multi-billion dollar infrastructure upgrade ahead of the World Cup. Although financial terms were not disclosed, the deal illuminates just how indispensable IBM hopes to become to the daily operations of Rio--and how it plans to do the same for cities everywhere. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI