In 2019, the DIA saw initiatives grow across the city from the downtown core to Southern Dallas where Phase II initiatives are getting ready to get ‘on the road’ this spring.
Our focus continues to be on leveraging data, technology and community to improve quality of life and address challenges facing Dallas and its residents. 2019 offered many opportunities to drive this mission forward, through the support of the city of Dallas, our partners, and our friends and neighborhoods throughout the city of Dallas. This year we welcomed new partners into the DIA, and are so grateful to work with them and their teams on projects zeroing in on closing the digital divide and ‘homework gap’, creating STEM experiential learning environments, innovation in mobility, data accessibility, and serving the ‘digital citizen’.
In the West End Smart Cities Living Lab, measurement of the 10 projects deployed in our corridor continued to gather longitudinal data, and additional projects came to fruition, including “Dallas Alley Reimagined” the activation of the metal arches lining the underpass dividing two the West End and Victory Park neighborhoods. Bringing additional connectivity for all modes of travel is a key desired outcome in building a smart city that responds to the needs of our neighbors and visitors.
We were honored to support the City of Dallas Parks & Recreation department, Parks for Downtown Dallas, Downtown Dallas Inc. and James Corner Field Operations on the design of the West End Square ‘smart park’. This park will infill a surface parking lot, providing green space that serves the neighborhood and focuses on a smart park as one with Smart Materials, Smart Operations and Smart Experiences. The Innovation Arcade component of the park will allow for rotating installations of new technology, interactive art and additional experiential opportunities for visitors. This week was the groundbreaking of the park, which should be completed in January 2021.
Our work on Phase II efforts in South and Southern Dallas picked up steam, with lots of conversations and partnerships with organizations in the area about needs around mobility, public safety, and digital access and inclusion. We’re chomping at the bit to get some of these projects ‘on the road’ in the first half of 2020! Two mobility projects serving job seekers to seniors are coming together, more details on these coming soon!
Nonprofits often struggle with accessing and interpreting the data they desperately need to write grant applications, track performance and report out. A prototype tool to simplify access to key data sets is being put together in partnership with the State Fair of Texas, Dallas Baptist University and local expert data volunteers.
Coming in 2020, our mobile learning lab will provide Wi-Fi access, on-board tutoring, programming and beyond in the afternoon and evening hours to help close the homework gap, and provide a place to visit to take care of job applications, continuing education, water bills and more. Workshops on financial and digital skills - including how to keep your identity safe online - will be held on a regular basis for young and old alike.
We are grateful to our Phase II partners for their support of these projects, including: AT&T, Capital One, Cisco, Meadows Foundation, Netsync, Santander Consumer Foundation, the State Fair of Texas, and Toyota.
Further to the critical topic of digital inclusion, this year we were grateful to work with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and their brilliant subject matter expert Jordana Barton on the Digital Inclusion Summit in the fall, with the goal outcome of creating a multi-disciplinary coalition focused on closing the digital divide via breaking barriers to access, affordability and training. The summit was standing room only, comprised of public officials, community groups, educational institutions from Pre-K through PhD, nonprofit organizations, EDCs, private sector, philanthropic institutions, startup incubators and beyond. All are committed to finding their part to play in solving one of the greatest challenges of our - and the next - generation. We’re excited to see what develops and progresses in 2020.
DIA Community
This year, DIA’s events brought together nearly 1000 members of the community. At our monthly Munch & Learns, we heard from leaders including the City of Dallas’ Comprehensive Environment and Climate Action Plan leadership, Alan Cohen of the Child Poverty Action Lab, Summer Wright-Collins of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s C1 Innovation Lab, TheMap.io’s Robert Mundinger, Stephen Duong of AECOM talking Hyperloop and Uber Elevate and The Innov8te Smart Cities Incubator Cohort Companies. We were able to partner with TalkSTEM on a WalkSTEM experiential video walking tour of the West End highlighting how science and design is present everywhere you look!
In 2020, the DIA is focused on four main areas - first, Phase II execution in Southern Dallas, second, continuing to work with the Federal Reserve Bank and key organizations to formally launch a Dallas Digital Inclusion Alliance and get to work to bring access, affordability and training for all our residents and pioneer models to execute methods to accomplish this from a collaboration, financial and policy perspective. Third, targeted topical convening on critical issues on cybersecurity and privacy - how do we bring peers together to learn and discuss needs, challenges and solutions for our region? Finally, we’re excited to move forward in supporting the creation of a regional initiative as a natural next step in providing a smart region - bringing a secure, efficient and resilient future for citizens, where quality of life is key, and a recognition that geographic boundaries are less and less relevant.
North Texas Innovation Alliance
In Dallas-Fort Worth, more than 40 percent of residents live and work in different counties within the metroplex. When those counties operate on disparate systems, whether emergency services, traffic signals, mass transit and so many others, we all suffer.
While enviable in many ways, as we address the impact of 360 people per day moving to DFW, we must address the region as a whole if we want that growth to be sustainable environmentally and operationally. Boundaries are irrelevant - and crossing them is critical.
There are innumerable opportunities to find success in regional collaboration utilizing best practices in data, technology, sustainability, land use, and service delivery, but the first step is the establishment of entities that drive strategy, commitment to collaboration and execution. Public, private, civic and academic institutions all play critical roles; which is why forming an entity to align and unite these stakeholders has been found to be a best practice.
2020 is another critical year to continue to progress with creativity, innovation and collaboration to create new solutions to existing challenges and create opportunities and a strong future. Stay tuned, get involved where you’re passionate, and let’s rock and roll!