Living Lab set to launch, TV show may highlight KC innovation

Bob Bennett, chief innovation officer at the City of Kansas City, Mo., said Kansas City has championed itself as a leader in big data and smart city tech for years now.

Since the launch of the Smart City initiative in 2016, downtown Kansas City has slowly been transforming into a hotbed of sensor networks and Wi-Fi connectivity on and around the 2.2-mile streetcar line.

“The bottom line is that now we are able to go from using data to ease making decision to now  using data to help make effective predictions so that the city can be better postured for the future,” Bennett said.

The $15.7 million public-private project is a collaboration between Kansas City, Sprint, Cisco and Think Big Partners. Last year, the initiative established 328 WiFi access points, 178 smart lighting video nodes and 25 smart kiosks, laying the foundation on which the city can begin to collect data on downtowners’ behavior.

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