Deborah Acosta

Resume

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	Name	Deborah Acosta
	Company	WeAccel
	Company Position	CEO/Founder
	City, State	San Leandro, CA
	Country	United States
	Sectors	Education
Consulting: {{{skill}}}

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Activities

		School Organized Locally Assisted Community Emergency‐Management
		The School Organized Locally Assisted Community Emergency‐Management (SOLACE) project focused on the use of a community school as a community resilience hub for its surrounding community. Community Resilience Hubs (CRHs) can be defined as community‐serving facilities augmented to support residents and coordinate resource distribution of resources and services to the surrounding community. This project focused specifically on the use of a CRM to support community member needs before, during, or after a natural hazard event and on developing a community‐led sociotechnical infrastructure framework for adapting a public school (Buckman Elementary School) as the pilot CRH. In 2022, this project received a NSF Planning Grant.
		Smart City Diaries TV Video Series
		Smart City Diaries is a documentary television and podcast series that showcases the phenomenon of digital transformation in small and large cities in the developed and developing world. Destination cities will have undertaken smart city initiatives to transform the way they manage their city operations and provide information and services to their residents. Each city has unique physical, social and cultural qualities; the series highlights individuals across cultures to understand how rapidly changing technologies impact how they live, work, play and learn. The series will be hosted by a mother and daughter team: Deborah Acosta and Anna Acosta. Their perspectives differ as do their attitudes and levels of comfort with new technologies: one is a baby boomer, the other a millennial. One was CIO for a small California city, the other is a musician, songwriter, social justice blogger and social media expert. They are both smart and sassy, ready to explore a range of cities and the people who are impacted by smart city digital transformations. Through the eyes of these two women, each episode reveals how unique locations approach meeting the quality-of-life demands of residents, businesses and visitors through increased use of technology in an era of the Internet of Things, shifting populations and shrinking budgets and resources.

		Resilience Hubs
		This chapter demonstrates how integrated smart systems that draw on a number of technologies, processes, and data can enable a community structures to function more efficiently for their main purpose as well as be prepared to serve as a “community resiliency hub” and/or “emergency shelter” as needed. Selecting a school as a community resilience hub leverages its existing function for families already charged with protecting children, employing vetted professionals, and communicating with parents, public safety agencies, and city government as well as embuing the school with some additional important functions and responsibilities to an extended community population. (The pilot for this project--using the Buckman School in Portland, Oregon--received a National Science Foundation Planning Grant in 2022.)
		Smart Waste
		A smart waste system is a type of waste management system that uses digital technology to improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of waste management.
		Smart Water
		A smart water system is a type of water management system that uses digital technology to improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of water management.
		Understanding Utility IoT and Smart Cities Financing Best Practices
		The Utility SuperCluster recognizes that while technology is now available; it is often difficult to secure appropriate funding to drive full scale technology adoption. Therefore, how technology is financed plays a major role in the success of IoT based solutions. This framework, while supportive of Utility centric investments, can also be applied in smart cities investments in general. This information provides a baseline for understanding challenges, government based options, and two perspectives on how to step out of the box with creative public and private sector funding opportunities. Contributions are provided by Smart Cities Council and Smart Cities Capital and is intended to provide a board understanding of this topic and framework as best practices.