Tag Archives: sustainability

My home thermostat joins the Internet of Everything

Pay it Forward

Another holiday season came and went, as we kick off the new year this week. Although one may or may not have celebrated Christmas, it likely has been a season in which we reflected on how lucky we may have been again.

For me, the recent events in Connecticut, the senseless wars and violence around the world, the victims of stronger growing weather disasters, and those that suffer from weak economies, make me realize how fortunate we truly are. Typically, we turn such sentiment into (small) acts of kindness. Maybe we shoveled the snow for a neighbor, spent a day volunteering at the Foodbank, shaved our heads or grew a moustache to raise money, or donated to a good cause.

It’s the little things that make the difference.

It’s not just us as individuals that seek ways to give back. In the corporate world this behavior has earned itself a name, Corporate Social Responsibility. All year round, corporations and their employees support great grass-roots and corporately orchestrated initiatives that give back and do good. Continue reading →

Green Building Centre at intersection of ICT and Construction

Earlier this year I wrote a blog about the launch of a brand new Building Automation program at George Brown College in Toronto. The message was simple: if the construction and real estate industry is changing how it designs, builds, and operates our infrastructure (buildings, roads, bridges), then consequently we will have to ensure that its future workforce is trained to handle the more sustainable and intelligent built environment and processes. Changing demands from the industry and our partnership with George Brown College have resulted in this exciting new 3-year curriculum that will prepare our builders and facility managers of the future.

This week, the College made another exciting announcement that builds on the realization that the world is changing and that education and research has to change with it accordingly. Together with Minister Diane Finley from the Canadian Federal Government (Ministry of Human Resources and Skills Development), Dean of the Center for Construction and Engineering Technologies Nancy Sherman announced the creation of a first-in-class “Green Building Centre” at George Brown College. Continue reading →

Innovating Transportation, Mobility with ICT Networks

Last Tuesday (Sept. 18th), I was invited to speak with Laura Di Battista about the importance of the Information Highway as an essential infrastructure for every community and every country. Canada has a long way to go, and is not necessarily recognizing broadly the importance of ICT networks as critical utilities for the success of our Nation.

Listen to Canada’s CBC Radio 1, “Here and Now” — interview with Rick Huijbregts on “Building the Information Highway”

The interview was an introduction to Cisco’s participation in EVERGREEN BRICKWORK’s MOVE 2012 exhibition. For several months – until October – EBW will showcase innovations in matters of infrastructure, mobility, and transportation. For several Tuesdays in a row – until October 11th – EBW is hosting INNOVATION TALKS where different voices from the community, government, and business are asked to openly share their thoughts on the future of mobility in increasingly denser communities.

Continue reading →

Listen to Interview by Laura di Battista with Rick Huijbregts

Conversation on Connected Communities with CBC Radio 1′s Here and Now

The Future of Canada’s Infrastructure

It is an important week for “infrastructure” in Canada. Starting today (09-10-2012), Regina will be hosting the second-ever National Infrastructure Summit. Hunderds of delegates from the public and private sector will come together to not only discuss the state of Canada’s infrastructure, but also to explore opportunities and solutions in finance, policy, innovation, and citizen engagement. The summit is followed by FCM’s gathering of the Municipal Infrastructure Forum. The Forum is an informal body bringing infrastructure experts together with municipal and business leaders to exchange ideas, build consensus, and provide input to the federal government.

Infrastructure is the backbone for Canada’s economic success and quality of life. The roads and bridges we use to move ourselves, our goods, and our services; the electrical grid we need to power our economy and lives; the water infrastructure that is required to deliver healthy and quality water; all are critical to the fabric of a Nation—especially in a country that is falling behind in productivity and innovation. Berry Vrbanovic [Past President at the Federation for Canadian Municipalities] says: “The last few years have seen important investments in our infrastructure that have helped slow the rate of decline and given us hope for our future. However, Canada is at a tipping point; either we continue moving forward with the job of re-building or we fall further behind as crumbling roads, traffic gridlock and sky-high housing prices cost our economy jobs and growth.” Continue reading →

Why Cisco partners with Federation of Canadian Municipalities

To create a nation of innovation, you need infrastructure that goes beyond roads and buildings. Networked and wired buildings are crucial, but just as important are the networks of people and the public sector/private sector partnerships that bring everything together at the local level.

Our goal at Cisco Canada is to bring key stakeholders together and co-create new solutions and processes that introduce technologies to deliver economic, environmental and social sustainability for municipalities.

You might have heard about our latest step toward this goal as we recently announced our strategic agreement with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). As part of this agreement, we will provide thought leadership, tools and support to almost 2,000 FCM members based on our Cisco Smart+Connected Communities strategy. Continue reading →

New Cisco Innovation Centre demonstrates commitment to our partners

It’s an exciting time here at Cisco Canada, especially for the folks involved with Smart+Connected Communities (S+CC). We recently announced the second phase of the Boyle Renaissance development with The Holmes Group in Edmonton, are underway on Canada’s first Smart+Connected Community, Rampart Avenir in St.Albert, and we continue to build strong relationships with municipalities throughout Canada. And now, we add to our achievements with the official opening of our exciting new Innovation Centre here in our Toronto office.

At first glance, the Innovation Centre is a strategic location where Cisco and our partners can come together and co-create pragmatic, scalable and repeatable solutions and proof of concepts for smart communities. But the Centre is much more than that. It truly is the culmination of our S+CC vision and highlights the vital role our partners play in the execution of that vision. Continue reading →

Speed matters…or does it?

Last week I was one of the many speakers at “Business and Bandwidth: Driving Innovation and Competitiveness in Central Ontario”. It was an excellent event hosted by iCanada, the Government of Ontario, and York Region that brought together stakeholders from numerous regional municipalities to discuss the impact of a connected community on innovation and competitiveness. There was lots of emphasis of the need for speed; ultra high-speed internet bandwidth available to all. Although I don’t disagree with that starting point, it raises to me also a few questions. Yes; there is plenty of proof that high-speed internet connectivity has a measurable result on economic development. I will be the last to dispute Gartner, United Nations, and others that claim “scaling to a Gigabit access could increase GDP by 3% each year”. I am confident that they have done their research to back it up.

There is no doubt in my mind, that new (Greenfield) communities will have to build 1 Gbps (or FTTH, Fiber to the Home) infrastructures (and be ready for more). Frankly, anything less will not necessarily be more cost effective these days anyway. But there is a world out there that is already built; where infrastructure is already in place. If the business case for massive overhauls would be that apparent, there certainly would be much less debate and more fiber roll-out (all the way to the door). “Build it and they’ll come” does not work [in my humble opinion], and plenty communities around the world have already experienced this. We have got to understand for who we’re building the infrastructure (today), and what shall be done with it, to make the business case stick.

Big business, universities, and other data-intensive industries may require bigger pipes already, and organizations like ORION do provide for them (building infrastructure of 100 Gbps, and preparing for 500 Gbps, and talking about 1 Tbps (not tablespoons, but Terabit-per-second !). Most of us, however, are not quite there yet. The small-medium-businesses and families in homes (which really make the bulk of the fabric of our society) wouldn’t know what to do with 1 Gbps (today) or more [but certainly need an upgrade from the squeaky dial-up, which sadly enough is still prevalent in many places].

Some communities are understanding this and aren’t jumping on the bandwagon for immediate fiber bandwidth infrastructure to the door (yet). WiFi community networks are providing a perfect interim step to deliver high-speed internet to all its constituents. The WiFi networks start driving (and understanding) the demand. What really matters – and where we luckily are seeing the debate leaning towards to – is the appreciation of what to do with the pipes. Provide value to the community constituents and build corresponding infrastructure to deliver and consume such value with the speed and ease that we’ve become accustomed to.

In my presentation at the event, I suggested that not every town will have large universities and global business that will demand the bandwidth and be an economic magnet. Surely, that doesn’t mean that smaller and remote communities can’t be big players in the global economy without necessary overhauling the existing network infrastructures with 1 Gbps-to-the-door or more. I suggest a gradual and calculated (yet immediate) deployment of high-speed internet with plentiful of capacity to support the factual needs and expectations of the stakeholders that enable them to communicate and collaborate with the connected world around them. Today, I don’t need 1 Gbps to my house to operate my Telepresence from my home office. With just the right (yet scalable and expandable) infrastructure, even the smallest and today’s least connected and most remote communities can become active participant in the rapidly changing world.

Doing nothing is not an option, but the transition of our (existing) communities into smart and connected communities may not be sprint either. This is a marathon; and along the way we build the services, drive the demand, upgrade the infrastructure and so forth. Nobody knows what the future holds…yet we know it’s evolving at an accelerating speed: and connectivity to the rest of the world is a critical part of it. Speed is a means to an end. It’s all about the services ! Build the services; create demand; and (ultra) high-speed bandwidth will come. Enough talk. Let’s do it.

Clicks and Mortar: Innovating Infrastructure

Billions (in Canada) and Trillions (around the world) of dollars are being spent each year on the development and renewal of our infrastructure. Roads, bridges, homes, and [commercial, industrial, and institutional] buildings make the physical fabric of our communities. A small, yet growing portion, of this global spending goes to the systems that make this infrastructure work; such as security, mechanical, electrical, and transportation systems.

These systems have always been part of the DNA of the underlying infrastructure for our communities (nothing new there). However, the difference is that they are becoming smarter and more capable to have a profound impact on the performance of the infrastructure. Where historically these systems were subservient to the bricks, beams, and concrete they were housed in; it now seems they are being elevated in importance. The intelligent systems have now the ability to make our infrastructure come to life – and provide greater value to those that depend on it.

The great enabler of this shift is the world of information and communications technology (ICT), and more specifically the Internet and IP networks. Networks become the new addition to the DNA of our infrastructure. We have seen already numerous examples where connected and smarter infrastructure has the ability to positively impact economic, social, and environmental sustainability. My blogs have covered several of these examples, and please keep reading them as there are more to come.

The trend of smarter and more connected infrastructure is unstoppable as every sensor, device, system (and user) will become a node on the Internet and its worldwide networks. We [as in leaders in the construction, design, development, ICT industries, and many other stakeholders] have now the stewardship to channel this transformation into a direction that is repeatable and sustainable. Together we have the ability to (re)build the fabric of our communities through the intelligent use of technology and innovation. As we see this technology and innovation converge with bricks and mortar, we will end up with infrastructure that meets our, and our children’s, rapidly growing expectations in a resource constraint world.

At Cisco Plus in Canada on Wednesday May 16^th, a selected group of leaders in the infrastructure industry (architects, engineers, developers, builders) will gather to discuss the implications of “clicks and mortar”, and the opportunities it will provide to all that are interesting pursuing them. The future is here, let’s now optimize and monetize it, together.

When you are visiting Cisco Plus, please attend also the Business Session “Managing Unprecedented Change with Business Transformation” by Sandy Hogan (Cisco Vice President of Americas Business Transformation) on Wednesday May 16^th at 11am EST.