Innovations for Smart Green City: What’s Working, What’s Not and What’s Next

Tuesday, June 26, 2012
12:00 AM - 12:00 AM
(Pacific)
Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business
  • Please click here to download the Roundtable Agenda.
  • Please click here to download the Speaker and Moderator Profiles.

Roundtable at Stanford

On June 26-27, the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) hosted a circle of leaders from academia, industry, and the public sector who are driving the understanding and best practice for smart green cities to gather for a dynamic and interactive roundtable at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

The aim was to convene a productive mix of researchers and experts for presentations and fruitful discussion on the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of information technologies and energy that can transform buildings and transportation on the urban scale.

Smart and Green

Innovations at the intersection of smart and green-- in technologies, products and services--are transforming how we work and live. Smart represents ubiquitous information and communication technology, driven by advances in computing, internet, cloud, and mobile. Green signals bringing clean tech to energy consumers to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency.

Buildings and Transportation in Cities

More than half of the world’s population now resides in cities, with urbanization projected to intensify in key areas, such as in China and Africa.  In cities, buildings and transportation account for the largest proportion of energy use; together they also shape the quality of daily life and work.

Learning from Innovations Deployed or Ready to Demo

In these two key application areas, there has been a great deal of R&D, investment and experimentation, ranging from designs for whole new cities in Son

"Innovations for Smart Green Cities" Conference program
gdo and Masdar to installations of services on mobile devices in Seoul and Barcelona.  These advancements have been joined by innovations in public private partnerships, financial models, and policy instruments. Now that early phase innovations have been built, installed and tested by users, some products and services have proven to be successful. Others are less effective, economical or scalable than hoped; others are emerging as more disruptive and valuable than anticipated.  What have we learned to date?  What is on the horizon?

Key Questions

With the early phases of technologies, products and services now deployed, it is important to take stock.  What is working (and what is not)?  Why?  How can feedback from researchers, designers, vendors, and—importantly—users be leveraged for future improvement in design and strategy?   What new developments are ready to demo or be commercialized that may also significant impact the next generation of smart green cities?

During the “Smart Green Innovations” Roundtable, discussions focused on an array of questions, such as:

  • In the key application areas of buildings and transportation, what lessons have been learned through implementation of smart green products and services deployed to date?
  • What are critical bottlenecks for the development of smart green cities?  How to overcome challenges, such as facilitating rapid learning, proving financial viability, or integrating innovations into complex systems?
  • What frameworks and tools can be used to better analyze and improve smart green cities?
  • Which cities around the globe have demonstrated effective smart and green innovations?  Which are leading case studies that illustrate lessons on what is effective and scalable? 
  • What government roles and policies have been effective?  What partnerships—including those that are cross-discipline, cross-sector, cross-organization,  or cross-border—are helping accelerate the development and deployment of high impact innovations that can shape smart green cities?
  • How is the landscape for smart and green shifting globally--where are the hotspots or centers of knowledge and excellence?
  • Who are some of the key innovators, labs, firms, and organizations pioneering the way? What technologies, products, services, and business models are driving the next generation of innovation?
  • What firms and entrepreneurs look promising for leading the next wave of change for smart green cities?