GCTC


NIST Sector	Public Safety
GICS Industrial	Consumer Services
Smart Tag(s)
Business type	Nonprofit
Year Founded	2014
Founder(s)	National Institute of Standards and Technology
City, State	Washington DC
Country	United States
Region Served	Worldwide
Executives	Michael Dunaway
Revenue	0$ 0 <br />€ 0 <br />£ 0 <br />CA$ 0 <br />CNY 0 <br />
Number of employees	40
Sponsorship Level	Of Interest

Members

The NIST Global Community Technology Challenge is a network of cities, communities, industry, academic, and government partners who jointly develop and deploy emerging technologies for smart cities and communities with a focus on Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications.

The GCTC program strives to create an environment in which communities benefit through participation in Public-Private Partnerships to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of community infrastructure and services, and improve residents’ overall quality of life.

Details

Since its launch at a 2014 NIST workshop, the GCTC program has evolved into a network of over 220 U.S. and international cities and communities, involving over 500 industry, academic, and government stakeholders who jointly develop and deploy emerging technologies for smart cities and communities. The program has created an ecosystem for information sharing and technology development in which communities can gain tangible benefits from collaboration and exchange of best practices to improve efficiency, lower costs through economies of scale, and improve the lives and economic benefits to their populations.

The GCTC is comprised of community-focused “Action Clusters” from cities across the U.S. and the globe. Its goal is to spur collaboration among innovative local governments and agencies, nonprofits, and private companies to overcome challenges and develop solutions with leaders in the Smart City and Internet of Things (IoT) fields. This chart provides the most recent (2019) depiction of the extent of GCTC member communities, with over 150 named cities and regions identified in the central portion of the graphic.

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Measuring 'Smart' in 'Smart City'

‘Smart,’ as used by NIST in the phrase ‘smart cities,’ is defined as the efficient use of digital technologies to provide prioritized services and benefits to meet community goals, such as economic vitality, resilience and sustainability, equity, and quality of life.

NIST has been involved in developing a series of Frameworks to illustrate, analyze, and understand the relationships between the natural and build environment and the cyber-physical systems that comprise a smart city or community.

Frameworks

Frameworks are documented conceptual structures that organize and make clear collective wisdom (vision, principles, underlying structure, functions, requirements)
Frameworks are created with technical expertise through a consensus-based process involving all relevant stakeholders
Representing a range of perspectives, viewpoints, interests, communities of practice, processes, and policy objectives
Since 2008, NIST has published a range of smart system frameworks, the most recent of which is the “Framework for Holistic Key Performance Indicators for Smart Cities and Communities”, published in March 2022.

The most recent NIST smart city guide is the “Framework for Holistic Key Performance Indicators for Smart Cities (H-KPIs),” which establishes a methodology for measuring connectedness of infrastructure systems, information networks, IoT-based sensors, and data flows within smart cities and communities as a means for quantifying the effect and impact of the integration of smart systems within the city and community ecosystem and assessing the contribution of technology advancements to community environmental, economic, social, and cultural benefits, community resilience and overall quality of life for residents.

The H-KPI Framework establishes a methodology for the assessment of data at three interacting levels of analysis: technologies, services, and benefits, representing specific technology platforms within the smart city infrastructure. The technologies platform includes IoT sensors and actuators, networks, data systems, and computational hardware and software. The services platform includes the communications, transportation, energy, water, and buildings sectors, and related services including emergency response, law enforcement, waste management, education, and city/community services. The benefits platform includes applications that benefit people and businesses and provide equitable access, including personal safety and security, business and jobs growth, health care, environmental quality, and other quality of life factors, to include cultural resources.

Smart City and Community KPIs Relations Overview

The “H-KPI Framework” offers an analytic approach for developing and implementing Holistic Key Performance Indicators (H-KPIs) in smart cities. The goal is to establish a methodology for measuring connectedness of infrastructure systems, information networks, IoT-based sensors, and data flows within smart cities and communities as a means for quantifying the effect and impact of the integration of smart systems within the city and community ecosystem.

This approach is applicable to the assessment of networks within a single building—as depicted on the right-hand illustration—and can be scaled to multiple buildings with a city, and further integrated within the numerous cyber-physical systems that characterize a modern city.

A similar analytic approach might be taken to define the relationship between a person living in the community and wearing a Fitness Tracking device (such as a heart rate monitor; digital watch; personal GPS locator, etc), and thereby serving as a node in the community’s overall digital ecosystem. The same could be said for anyone carrying a cell phone with location tracking, temperature monitor, or accelerometer (i.e., virtually all cellphones) whose device is essentially an environmental sensor within the community.

Smart Connected Human (Fitness Tracking)

In October 2016, the GCTC organized the 160 existing Action Clusters into a set of “SuperClusters” based on specific community service and mission areas. The SuperClusters have since evolved as the organizing structure for the GCTC, representing specific technology focus areas, while also coordinating the activities of a diverse membership of community Action Clusters from cities and regions across the nation and among international partners. By 2019, the initial seven SuperClusters had expanded to nine, and since 2020 have added three more to comprise twelve working groups aligned along the technology areas noted here.

Since its formation, the GCTC has evolved toward a broader understanding of the definition of a “Smart Community,” and recent efforts are putting a focus on the validity of data, the trustworthiness of technology, decision systems, and decision-making, with the goal of enhancing the integrity of the community, as both an engineered system, and as a social system.

Evolution of Smart City Focus and Priorities

GCTC is exploring the application of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs to the Smart Community, as a basis for understanding priorities for developing and integrating Holistic Key Performance Indicators (H-KPIs) within individual cities and communities.

NIST publications relevant to Smart Cities.

GCTC

Details

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