11 minute read
how smart a city coulD bE?
Eduardo Burgos-Suazo,
COO of ABEXUS Analytics and Professor at UPRCA
Advertisement
The Journey to Smart Cities Starts with a Single Data Point
Back in 2015, 193 countries agreed on several desirable global goals that are known today as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Of the 17 SDGs, goal number 11 focuses on Sustainable Cities and Communities. This comes as no surprise when one examines historic population movement data and finds that societies are becoming highly urbanized. As seen in the past few years, this process brings environmental, technological, sociocultural, demographic, and governmental challenges. In fact, it is forecast that by 2040, 65% of the world population will live in cities. Therefore, it is imperative to tackle a roadmap that blends the necessary infrastructure to embrace the demanding realities of the next decades.
Considering the historic juncture and the once-in-a-generation inflow of federal funds to rebuild Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane María, the island is ripe to consider innovative, datadriven solutions to rebuild and face the challenges of tomorrow. Governments all around the world are betting on roadmaps to develop “smart cities”. Let’s dive in!
Smart City… What?
It is likely that on a daily basis one interacts with multiple devices that are interconnected in one way or another like smart watches, wireless earbuds, cellphones, and smart speakers. Maybe at home one controls dimming the lights for certain periods, adjusting the thermostat of air conditioning systems, or even modifying security camera angles, all from a cellphone. These are examples of what is called “Internet of Things” (IoT), which refers to a network of connected devices (mainly through the internet) that are embedded with sensors and software that generate, transmit, and send us vast amounts of data to “make things” happen.
What if… one could implement the same logic to transform a city into a data powerhouse by interconnecting public infrastructure, while also leveraging the potential of data analytics to make smarter decisions? Even though data generation has increased exponentially, the cost of collecting primary data has also gone up dramatically (particularly in scenarios where probabilistic sampling is required). This roadmap enables cities to produce massive amounts of updated and realtime data at a fraction of the price, thereby empowering governments to transform data into information and information into knowledge, which will optimize city functions and promote economic growth. It is my belief that this relatively unexpensive technology (IoT) can bridge the gap between sustainability and urban development strategies, while mitigating the serious data infrastructure problem that the island suffers.
A concrete example of this would be smart roads, which use sensors that collect data on vehicle and pedestrian levels in order to, for instance, optimize and divert traffic according to different conditions. These sensors could establish population density in different areas of the city to know when and where to deploy police officers, as well as improve public safety. Smart street lights are weather adaptive to boost energy consumption, for example. That, in combination with smart waste management, will help monitor street bins and collect data on waste levels, which would optimize fuel usage of waste collectors. Within the city, one could even engage citizen participation via different applications in order to report any sort of situation (automatically georeferencing them). In essence, the city would be transformed into a digital platform. Just to name a few examples.
Now, one may believe that the above-mentioned explanation is coming from a science fiction movie or from the wonders of Isaac Asimov’s stories, but… it is no longer a question of if, but when. Traditional urban planning and development techniques must be evaluated to embrace designs that incorporate data-driven methods that will build and enhance the cities of tomorrow. Let’s welcome a culture of open data, transparency, and data-driven decision-making to city management. Puerto Rico has the unique chance of becoming a model of innovation as it rebuilds and becomes part of the future. We need to decide whether we would rather stay in the past or create the ecosystem necessary to become part of the select few that will establish sustainable cities and communities over the next decade.
Eduardo Burgos
Jay Acey, left, dressed as A-Train from the television series “The Boys,” Faeren Adams, center, dressed as Marvel superhero Doctor Strange, and Derek Shackleton, dressed as Marvel superhero Moon Knight, walk together outside Preview Night at the 2022 Comic-Con International. >AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
In fact,
Comic-Con makes most of its news as a venue to show off trailers and footage from forthcoming films and TV shows.
The characters and the spectacle of Comic-Con
Cosplayers were the self-made stars of the show
The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (AP) – Comic-Con is back in person, and back in character.
The spectacle was everywhere in and around the San Diego Convention Center amid the crowd of tens of thousands of fans at the first full-attendance version of the pop culture phenomenon since 2019.
They came to watch panels and previews from movies like “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” and from TV shows like on Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and Apple’s heavily Emmy-nominated dystopian drama “Severance.”
“Everybody’s just been cooped up for a while, and they had been anticipating this,” said Minneapolis resident Dinh Truong, 34, who came to Comic-Con for the second time. “I was excited to see everybody cosplaying and all that, and just getting back to what we used to be.”
And as they were in years’ past, the cosplayers were the self-made stars of the show, drawing gawking from convention-goers and photographers.
While spot-on cinematic authenticity is the goal for some of the costume wearers, others use their characters as a starting point for broader creativity or expressions of identity.
Kaleigh Kailani of Los Angeles dressed as an especially electric Mad Hatter, with long, shimmering green hair, purple top hat, striped tights and a skirt that looked like layered tutus.
In a Marvel meets Marie Antoinette mashup, Kerri Zehrung added a powdered wig and lampshade skirt to her Iron Man costume, and Jasmine Preston gave the same transformation to Spider-Man.
San Diego locals Lisa Lower and Shawn Richter used almost the entire color spectrum for their outfits, adding rainbow elements of the LGBTQ pride flag to the metal mask of the Mandalorian from the “Star Wars” galaxy, with an umbrella, suspenders and feathers to boot.
One group of cosplayers were done up in giant masks and plastic clothes as Funko Pop dolls of characters including Wonder Woman, Batman, and Ursula the Sea Witch from “The Little Mermaid.”
When they weren’t acting out their roles, cosplayers led more pedestrian lives. They had to get their fictional weapons tagged as safe by security guards. They sat and looked at their phones. Paul Forest of Toronto, dressed impeccably as the original Mr. Spock from “Star Trek,” got a shoeshine from Daniel Golden, who was dressed as his superior officer Captain Kirk.
Lorelei McKelvey, 54, who is from San Diego but now lives in Yokosuka, Japan, was dressed as Captain Carter, Captain America’s British World War II-era counterpart.
“I had to do one that I could authentically replicate,” McKelvey said. “I went and did my research and found out what were the authentic British officer leathers worn in World War II, and I found manufacturers to actually make those leathers.” She walked the Convention Center floor in real-as-possible officer cavalry boots and Royal Air Force gauntlets, and carried a 5-pound steel shield.
McKelvey came to Comic-Con and worked a booth for 20 straight years. This is her first time coming as a cosplayer, and her second time coming as a trans woman, and she’s excited to be reunited with the cherished friends she’s made here.
Comic-Con makes most of its news as a venue
Dinh Truong, 34, two-time Comic-Con attendee
to show off trailers and footage from forthcoming films and TV shows during star-studded megapanels held in Hall H, which holds some 6,000 people. Panels this year included Warner Bros. and the DC Universe’s “Black Adam.”
“Get ready, because the hype is real,” Johnson said in pro-wrestler promo mode on Instagram earlier this month. “Guess who’s coming to town, the most electrifying man in all the DC Universe.”
Marvel may held back its best material for Disney’s forthcoming D23 Expo, but teased with its next film, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and the Disney+ TV series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.”
A pair of much-anticipated fantasy prequels also gave fans a taste of their worlds. A new trailer dropped Wednesday in advance of a panel from HBO Max showing off the “Game of Thrones” spinoff, “House of the Dragon,” set 200 years before the original series.
Amazon on its part, went back in time 2000 years for “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” a tale of the emergence of evil among the elves long before Frodo and Bilbo walked Middle Earth. Their panel this year came 21 years after director Peter Jackson presented footage from the first of the original films at Comic-Con.
Pope in Canada honors grandparents after apology
The event was marked by the Feast of St. Anne, a figure of particular veneration for Canadian Catholics
Nicole Winfield and Peter Smith – The Associated Press
EDMONTON, Alberta — Pope Francis arrived for his first big Mass in Canada on Tuesday to honor grandparents, a day after he apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in severing generations of Indigenous family ties by participating in Canada’s “disastrous” residential school system. Tens of thousands of people in attendance at
Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, cheered as Francis entered and looped around the field in his popemobile, stopping occasionally to kiss babies. Accompanying him was a steady beat from Indigenous hand drummers. Phil Fontaine, former chief of the Assembly of
First Nations and a residential school survivor, urged the crowd to forgive in remarks delivered before Francis’ arrival: “We will never achieve healing and reconciliation without forgiveness,” he said. “We will never forget, but we must forgive.” The Mass marked the Feast of St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus and a figure of particular veneration for Canadian Catholics. Francis’ ode to grandparents was to continue later Tuesday with a prayer service at one of
North America’s most popular pilgrimage sites, Lac Ste. Anne, considered to be a place of healing. Francis has long lauded the role of grandmothers in passing the faith on to younger generations, citing his own experience with his grandmother, Rosa, while growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For several months Francis has delivered weekly catechism lessons on the need to treasure grandparental wisdom and not discard them as part of today’s
“culture of waste.” That message has great resonance in Canada, where Indigenous families were torn apart by a church-enforced government policy of forcible assimilation. More than 150,000 Native children in Canada were taken from their homes and forced to attend government-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their families and culture. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior. In his first event in Canada, Francis on Monday blasted the residential school policy as a “disastrous error” that did “catastrophic” harm. At the site of a former school in Maskwacis, he apologized for the “evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples” and vowed further investigation and steps to promote healing. Reaction to his visit and words was mixed: Some survivors stayed away and criticized Indigenous leaders’ decision to present Francis with a feathered headdress, which is a sign of respect. Others welcomed his apology as genuine and praised the attention his visit has drawn to the horrors of the residential school system. Indigenous leaders urged him to make good on his pledge to continue the path of reconciliation with concrete action: turning over church records about the fate of Indigenous children who died at schools, funding therapeutic healing programs for survivors and facilitating investigations of those responsible for abuses. Francis “can’t just say sorry and walk away,” said Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation. Cree Nation Chief Vernon Saddleback said many “survivors and thrivers” in his community were
In fact, pleased: “Words cannot describe how important today is for the healing journey for a lot of First Nations people.” Lac St. Anne is a century-old pilgrimage site Pope Francis where the faithful come and wade into the lake. apologized for the Francis was to preside over a liturgy of the word “evil committed by service there and bless the waters. In the runup to so many Christians the pope’s visit, Alberta health authorities issued against the a blue-green algae bloom advisory for the lake, Indigenous peoples.” warning visitors to avoid contact with the blooms and refrain from wading where they are visible. The lake is known as Wakamne, or “God’s Lake,” by the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation who live nearby and Manito Sahkahiga, or “Spirit Lake,” by the Cree. The name “Lac Ste Anne” was given to it by the Rev. Jean-Baptiste Thibault, the first Catholic priest to establish a mission on the site. Francis’ has said his six-day visit, which also will take him to Quebec City and northern Iqaluit, Nunavut, is a “penitential pilgrimage” to atone for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system. It fulfills a key recommendation of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which sought a papal apology to be delivered on Canadian soil.
Pope Francis kisses a baby as he arrives at Commonwealth Stadium to take part in a public mass in Edmonton. >Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP
