Inaugural smart city summit eyes the future of public safety

How can technology improve the safety of a city?

That subject and more will be discussed during the upcoming Smart City Tech Summit, which will host dozens of government officials and public safety professionals from around the U.S.

The summit — set to take place March 29 through March 31 — will focus on the topic of public safety and how cities can benefit from incorporating smart city tech.

Attendees will explore the most critical safety concerns that all cities, school districts and organizations face today, and examine the technologies that can help manage these challenges. The smart city summit will feature leading public safety technologies from both well-known corporations and emerging startups, with the aim of fostering innovation, collaboration and a better understanding of how tech can help keep people safe.

Kansas City-based Think Big Partners will host the summit, which expects more than 300 attendees from across the U.S. and internationally. One of the major goals of the event is to bring together all stakeholders in public safety efforts to learn from each other, said Herb Sih, co-founder of Think Big Partners.

“A smart city must also be a safe city,” Sih said. “The goal of the Smart City Tech Summit is to bring together today’s leading public safety experts, along with innovative technologies and companies, so that city officials, law enforcement personnel, schools, innovators, entrepreneurs and more can all work together and learn from each other to make our communities as safe as possible from domestic terrorism threats.”

Attendees will see first-hand some of the most innovative technologies in the public safety space and meet the companies behind them. Sih encourages anyone in charge of large public spaces, such as schools, cities, and the organizations that work with them, to attend.

The summit will conclude with a live demonstration of recently declassified and emerging safety technologies — including drones, satellites and more — in a mock active shooter situation. The demo is invitation only, but summit attendees can request access during registration.

Public safety is paramount for communities in an age when domestic terrorism is increasing with greater frequency, Sih said. Smart city technology could have significant impact on both preventing and mitigating the impacts of such occurrences, he added.

“It is unfortunate that we live in a time that public safety and security is a growing problem for cities worldwide,” Sih said. “Cities have a duty to protect the public and we must learn what the best practices are to help make our communities as safe as possible. Then we need to identify the technologies that can help us accomplish this goal. We must work at the most sophisticated, intelligent level possible to defeat a growing, more sophisticated threat. Through innovation partnering between cities, technology providers and entrepreneurs, we can help create more powerful solutions.”

John Penn, one of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop and the senior solutions architect for law enforcement for Adobe, will be the summit’s keynote speaker. To register for the summit, click here.

See below for a complete schedule of smart city summit session.