[HH] Boston IoT grant from Knight Foundation

[Stephen Ronan]

As anticipated in the announcement I forwarded a few days ago, this
afternoon, Boston City Councillor Matt O'Malley presided over a
hearing of the  Council's Committee on Environment and Sustainability
Committee in respect to Boston having been selected as one of six
grantee cities each scheduled to receive $200,000 from the Knight
Foundation to explore how the IoT "can be deployed in cities in
responsible and equitable ways".

The other cities, in addition to Boston, are Philadelphia, Detroit,
San Jose, Miami and Akron.

Boston's grant "will fund experiments that aim to improve civic life
by supporting Boston's effort to create a process for deploying
sensors in urban environments".

The hearing consisted of descriptions of the anticipated grant
activities by Chris Carter, co-chair of the Mayor's Office of Urban
Mechanics, and Stephen Walter Program Manager at that same office, and
their responses to questions posed by Councillor O'Malley.

There seems still plenty of flexibility in respect to how the grant
funds will ultimately be used but there is expected to be central
focus on gathering input from a full array of interested parties
(including the ACLU) in respect to how sensor deployment here can be
most useful to the citizenry.

A video recording of the 24-minute hearing can be watched here:
https://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/cc_video_library.asp?id=11296

Stephen Ronan