How Newark is Evolving Using Advanced Technology

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Don Sebastian, President and CEO, New Jersey Innovation Institute, from the Amazon Alexa VOICE Summit at NJIT, to discuss how the city of Newark is evolving through advancements in data and technology.

9/25/18 #2167

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Hi, this is Steve Adubato, coming to you from the Voice Summit at NJIT. This event is sponsored by Amazon Alexa. And the gentleman I'm about to introduce you to knows a lot about innovation. He is Doctor Don Sebastian, President and CEO of the New Jersey Innovation Institute. Don, let me ask you, this conference... and again, there's a... there's not really so much a lull... Mm hmm. ...because there's about 2,200 to 2,500 people in another room listening to... Yeah. ...presentations, keynotes, panel discussions. How would you describe the... describe this Voice Summit, and what it means to NJIT, but also to Newark? Well, it's... it... when you look for a change, it's great to have something visible that really points to the fact the rest of the world gets what you've been trying to do for years. Right? And Newark has been trying for years to really grow its tech base. And the selection of the committee, to host... have this thing hosted here, first, is wonderful for the university. Sure. A chance to show off all of the new construction in this beautiful facility and the things that we do here, but even greater for Newark, really to be a turning point in the public visibility, that this is a vibrant, growing, tech based community, and it's going to be a very cool place to live, work, and play. Don, talk about... I think it was Aisha Glover who heads up economic development for the city, talk about the technology infrastructure in Newark. Mm hmm. Could you break that down as to what that means? So, let me tell you about our specific project, because then it leads into that. Sure. It's our Smart City initiative. We've been… Smart... it's called the Smart City initiative? Smart City... we're now calling it Tech Smart Newark. Okay. So we give it a brand name. It's been our belief that there's tremendous power in the Internet of Things. Smart devices, connected to the cloud, data analytics in the backend, to really transform urban living. And we have to. Because the growth of... What do you mean transform urban living? Well, the growth of population projected for the cities is explosive, but there are gonna be winners and losers, right? We can't just have crumbling infrastructure. We can't have roads congested with traffic. We can't have trash that doesn't get picked up. We can't have electrical systems that go down in the storm and that overload in the Summertime when the heat and the humidity are at their maximum. We can't have water mains that break. All of these things that have sort of been neglected and unattended, now have to..."