The Colorado Smart Cities Alliance (the Alliance) announced a partnership with the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) that will look to aid the growth of smart cities by providing communities across the state access to new technologies, according to a press release.
The partnership will help communities navigate problems like increasing the resilience of the energy grid and cutting down on the environmental impacts of transportation.
“The rapidly accelerating smart cities industry is using advanced technologies like the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to address community needs in innovative ways,” Alliance Executive Director Tyler Svitak said.
“We’re excited to partner across schools and colleges within CU Denver to help governments and businesses understand, analyze and measure the impact that smart cities applications may have with an informed, neutral, academic perspective that government and business cannot bring on their own,” Svitak continued.
The partnership will also let the Alliance’s staff access CU Denver’s research, as well as its student and faculty. The Alliance already has an office on CU Denver’s campus. The Alliance also brings an already established rolodex of business partners and government stakeholders to the table.
“The world is urbanizing quickly, and in some cases, faster than the infrastructure can accommodate,” said Nolbert Chavez, Executive Director of CU Denver’s CityCenter. “With 70 percent of the population projected to live in an urban setting by the year 2050, cities are primed to lead the charge on smart technology to enhance our way of life.”
CU Denver is looking to be an anchor institution in Denver and is utilizing research and partnerships to do so. This is not the first collaboration between CU Denver and the Alliance.
CU Denver is researching how electric vehicles can be used to charge buildings during peak events, in order to help decrease building energy costs and peak demand on the energy grid. The Alliance helped facilitate the first deployment of the idea, which would also provide a power backup in cases of emergency.
One of the Alliance’s founders is also a CU resident scholar who is helping CU Denver develop a graduate certificate program that will focus on tech that can be used to deal with infrastructure issues.
