Massoud Amin witnessed the 1977 NYC blackout, the 9/11 tragedies near DC, and the collapse of the I-35W bridge. He works on enabling smart, secure and resilient infrastructures. He leads extensive projects in smart grids and is considered the “father of smart grid.” He holds the Honeywell/H.W. Sweatt Chair in Technological Leadership at the University […]
About the Speech: Simon Giles discussed the opportunities presented by ‘Smart’ cities — urban spaces that harness the latest ICT developments to deliver more efficient and sustainable services and infrastructure. From electric cars to e-health services to energy-efficient buildings that use ‘smart’ meters, intelligent cities comprise a wide range of innovations that can be of
Simon Giles on Developing Intelligent Cities: Smart, Sustainable Urban Spaces Read More »
http://www.weforum.org The world urbanises at a rate of a million people per week. What challenges does this create? Is there an optimal size for a city? What does this mean for governments and business?
Infrastructure and Urban Development Read More »
A new report by IBM entitled “A Vision for Smarter Growth: an IBM Smarter Cities Report on Accra, Ghana” highlights how the rapidly emerging West African city should turn to technology to transform its key urban systems. Based on the opinions of local experts from across public and private sectors the report identifies transportation, energy
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Today, 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66 per cent by 2050. Projections show that urbanization combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban populations by 2050, with close to 90 percent of
World Urbanization Prospects 2014 Revisions Read More »
Scaling urban and community resilience: A strategy for global action This strategy paper outlines the concept for a collective global initiative on urban and community resilience. The goal is to encourage and enable a much greater number of communities to initiate and sustain climate resilience activities. With the Red Cross Red Crescent (RC/RC) and key
Urban and Community Resilience Initiative Read More »
The third edition of the United Nations Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR): “From shared risk to shared value: The business case for disaster risk reduction” is a resource for understanding and analyzing global disaster risk today and in the future. The 2013 edition looks at how public regulation and private investments shapes disaster
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This document, publiched by DFID, is intended to capture discussions from a series of stakeholder consultations on humanitarian response to urban crises through the topics of working with governments, the built environment, complex communities and markets.
Humanitarian Response to Urban Crises Read More »
Contrary to perceptions that southern Africa has a homogeneous and ‘low-risk’ profile, research results indicate a region exposed to a range of environmental and social pressures. Excluding the protracted humanitarian situations in Angola and Zimbabwe, 47 international humanitarian emergencies were identified between 2000 and 2012. The research shows that 37 of these were associated with an
Humanitarian Trends in Southern Africa: Challenges and Opportunities Read More »
In the Greater Chicago Region of the American Red Cross we have been running a fire preparedness and mitigation program called Team Firestopper (TFS) for almost 15 years. TFS was developed to specifically target the communities most impacted by home fires within our 13 county region in Northeastern Illinois and Northwestern Indiana. The program provides fire
Using Information Mapping And Data To Refine Your Decision Making Process Read More »