How Dominic Papa Makes a Smart City Challenge Work

Have you noticed that real estate construction is happening again? All around the Phoenix, Arizona cranes and crews are building. But for this boom, the Valley of the Sun is focusing on economic diversification through technology.

That’s why innovative organizations are creating local smart city challenges and grants. Examples of these initiatives are:

Banner on a Smart and Connected Health Initiative – $150,000 grant.
Cox Smart Gigabit Community Initiative Partnership – $300,000 grant.
Cisco (IoT) Internet of Things Challenge with the Phoenix Public Works Department – $20,000 prize.

To get smart city initiatives off the ground, you need community leaders. A few years ago, Dominic Papa saw a void in the Phoenix metro. So he co-founded a non-profit organization called Institute for Digital Progress (IDP). With IDP, Dominic found a way to partner with bureaucratic local city departments to help execute smart city pilot programs.

According to Siemens, smart cities focus on networked information technologies to help increase efficiency and communication. Now local organizations, like IDP, and local government offices are partnering together to build connected communities.

These digital partnerships focus on advancing public technology infrastructure. To solve problems like transportation and communications. Here are a few smart cities from around the world:

What did I learn from interviewing Dominic Papa?

To build innovate plans around network solutions, IaaS, and public policy, not only do you need technical knowledge, you need passion.

To get out of bed at 4:30 am, you must have a big WHY. And to continue to do great things, focus on partnerships and people.

Yes, technology is great. But never forget it is a tool to connect us. It is a process to automate redundancy. To end financial waste. Not to cut communication.

What should you do with this information?

If you enjoyed this article, don’t just share it with your friends and colleagues. It’s time to challenge each other. It’s time to have bigger visions than San Fransisco or Dubai.

If you want to win in the future, then you must change your mindset.

Does your business vision incorporate trends in AI and data-security?
Every week are you building relationships with people who relentlessly execute on big visions?