Now More Than Ever, Governments Need Data
Coronavirus (COVID 19) is forcing elected officials and government staff to make unimaginable decisions. Those decisions are having immediate, acute impacts on nearly every human on earth, as governments work to respond to the biggest challenge my Millennial generation has ever seen.
We are very much still in the middle (if not the beginning) of this pandemic, and our response to mitigating the worst impacts to human health and well-being should be forthright. However, I’ve been inspired by several great articles advocating the many ways this crisis could help us rebuild more sustainable, resilient and smart communities that avoid a return to a flawed status quo. In every crisis there is an opportunity, and as we navigate our way from response to recovery, the foundation of any strategy needs to be informed, enlightened decision-making.
Data, along with the tools, staff and governance needed use it effectively, should be an essential piece of any government infrastructure recovery strategy. This transition will take intentional change, and the “smart cities” movement has started it — but now is the time to speed it up.
Data
It’s more important than ever for governments to be searching for, combining, and acquiring the best data available to make the smartest decisions possible. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how quickly new resources have been leveraged to meet the challenge; from Johns Hopkins University’s COVID 19 Dashboard that has now been iterated many times over, to the cell phone data being used to track and monitor people movement across the globe, there are powerful new insights that should be informing the decisions that are dramatically impacting billions of us now at home.
However, the point I want to make is not just about the response and recovery to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). Governments make decisions every day about housing and zoning policy, what transit and mobility improvements to make and where, how to focus public health resources, and the best ways to improve public safety to name only a few. Generally, they make these decisions using what has been done in the past, hamstrung under current budgets, organizational structure, and human habits. They may also use data they are familiar with in spreadsheets from a decades-old, proprietary software shielded from other teams, divisions or departments. Even if they were aware of new ideas or data, and they had access to it, they likely don’t have the tools capable of combining, analyzing, and understanding such disparate insight. The barriers associated with doing new things in government are high — until crisis hits.
The Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, APIs and open-source platforms have created powerful tools that governments are only beginning to consider, let alone really leverage. With more data comes justified concerns surrounding security and privacy that need to be balanced, but it shouldn’t stop swift progress. Now should be the time governments should be looking for change, not shying away from it. Maybe more importantly, now is the time residents should be demanding change, because without public support, the paralysis of the status quo will force us to remain stagnant.
A “What If?” Scenario Should Really Be “Why Not?”
To continue the Coronavirus example, what if we had real-time data on medical supply availability at hospitals, crowd-sourced information on residents experiencing symptoms, real-time and historical travel behavior to monitor the spread, precise communication platforms that could send customized information to residents and manage two-way communication with automated responses, and artificial intelligence that told us where to focus resources proactively to prevent outbreaks in new communities?
More broadly, but still important, what if we knew the collective local food supply in our community both on the shelves and on the farms ready to be harvested? What if we knew which communities had the worst air quality known to exacerbate symptoms? The real game changer would be the ability to combine all of those data and determine communities at the greatest risk today, tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now.
The examples are endless, and if you look at it from a lens of crisis, our water utilities have little way of knowing when a water main breaks or where leaks are in the system, let alone any mechanism for detecting or preventing a water-based terrorist attack. The same is true for most critical infrastructure in the United States.
None of the what-if scenarios I mentioned above lack answers, nor are any of the problems we’re facing insurmountable. They represent real solutions available today, and each of them could be used for lots of other scenarios beyond Coronavirus. Also, many governments already have “smart cities” programs to prioritize innovation and leverage new data tools, but many of them are severely underfunded and under-prioritized. I know this because I work everyday with the stakeholders trying to improve our communities at the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance, and there are solutions available with people willing to try them. The missing ingredients are money, public support, and priority.
Smart Cities
This is the challenge and the promise of “Smart Cities” — the ability to leverage data, innovation and partnership to make smarter decisions that improve quality of life for their community. The desired result is a true digital transformation of cities to collect, manage, analyze and use data safely and securely. Much like we now have more data than ever before to manage our own health (fitbit, smartphone apps, etc), the health and well-being of our communities can also be monitored, predicted, and (maybe most importantly) simulated.
We’re well on our way, but there’s a lot of work to do. There are solutions and partners out there, but budgets are small, time is limited, and habits are slow to change. We, as a society, are woefully short sighted, and we expect our governments’ budget to be as well. Preparedness, proactiveness, and innovation aren’t priorities in government budgets, and they aren’t demanded by the public. Instead, the public often demands wider roads, less taxes, and less government, essentially asking for faster horses… Yet now, the public is asking why we weren’t more prepared. We need to translate today’s support into long-lasting strategy and investment in resilience, sustainability, and smarter government. At the center of all of it is data.
Let’s not let this crisis stop progress — let’s use it to accelerate recovery and prevent the next one. As a respected colleague, Julia Richman, said recently in her post, “don’t let this crisis go to waste.”
Tyler Svitak
Executive Director
Colorado Smart Cities Alliance
