N.O.T. Team Wins 2019 Smart Cities Miami Competition

The final presentations for the inaugural Design Your Coral Gables: Smart City Solutions Competition were held at eMerge Americas on Monday, April 29, 2019. The event was led by Joel Zysman, Director, CCS Advanced Computing, and Raimundo Rodulfo, Director, IT for the City of Coral Gables. This three-month Competition, officially launched in January at the 3rd annual Smart Cities MIAMI Conference yielded some great ideas. The Competition was designed in collaboration with the University of Miami School of Architecture, the Center for Computational Science, and the City of Coral Gables.

Winners were selected by a panel of expert judges based on the proposal’s interconnectivity, originality, transparency, sustainability, feasibility, impact, cost effectiveness, and interdisciplinarity. The Competition panel of judges included:

Rodolphe el-Khoury (Dean, UM School of Architecture and Director, Smart Cities program, UM CCS)
Pamela Fuertes (Director, Economic Development, City of Coral Gables)
Chris Mader (Director, Software Engineering, UM CCS)
Nelson Gonzalez (Assistant Director, IT, City of Coral Gables) , and
Matt Anderson (Sr. Sustainability Analyst, City of Coral Gables).

FINALISTS

The KAYROS team | Justo Vera-Ayesteran and Tupack Rhea | proposed UZIEL Charging Stations, addressing the need for public charging stations for electric vehicles. Their presentation examined various citizen concerns such as: locating charging stations and available amenities while they wait. Their solution proposed leased, unattended, covered, modular charging stations with a smart floor, powered by solar panels that could also offset electrical costs during peak hours. The UZIEL charging stations would add a module to the existing City of Coral Gables mobile app, and could be grid-connected. The KAYROS team went on to earn 3^rd place in the competition.

The SMART DAY CORAL GABLES team | Neil Schwam (pictured at left), Luis Carbonell, Elsa Mehary | addressed the capitalization of existing data to identify patterns, using data directly from cell phones, as opposed to the Waze app that gets data from users. This information would then be used for reverse marketing for City services. This proposal landed the Smart Day Coral Gables team 2^nd place in the competition.

THE LABORATORY OF EVERYDAY THINGS – N.O.T. (Neighborhood Oriented Transit) Team | Adib Cure, Rick Lopez, Chen Mingyu, Teofilo Victoria, Rogelio Cadena, and Wang Jing | proposed combining existing local modes of transportation into one mobile app; providing users a schedule, service locations, and connections County-wide for services like: Trolleys, Metrorail/Metromover, Hurry Canes Shuttle, Pedestrian Corridors, Bicycle Paths, County Bus Routes, County Shuttles, and the Free Bee. The Spin Scooters and Bikes data could also be incorporated into this mobile app.

Team POINCIANA II | Zoheb Anjum, Andre Rivero-Guevara | proposed the integration of Google traffic information with the County traffic lights controlling system. The team connected with the Miami-Dade County Public Works and Waste Management office of Frank Aria, Chief, Traffic Signals and Signs Division to understand where the County is headed with transportation control, and what is current practice. The team also explored what it would entail to have Coral Gables included in the management of this traffic lights/traffic flow.

WINNERS

First place went to The Laboratory of Everyday Things – N.O.T. Team. Winners earned a cash prize coupled with other prizes from the City of Coral Gables Parks and Recreation. All participants will be celebrated and recognized at the Coral Gables City Commission meeting on May 14, 2019.

Congratulations to all the participants!