Hardware Podcasts

Ep. 21 | Carnegie Mellon's Karen Lightman on the Intersection of Tech and Policy for Smart Cities

Moore's Lobby · 1 Apr 2021 · 35m · Episode 6

What this episode covers

Karen Lightman, Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon's Metro21 Smart Cities Institute, explains that smart city deployment requires co-creation with communities and rigorous real-world testing in 'living sandboxes' rather than just theoretical design. She highlights the danger of 'falling in love with a chip design' that lacks market viability, citing the MEMS industry's early struggles, and emphasizes the need for security-by-design from the chip level up. Lightman details how Metro21 uses machine learning to optimize meal delivery and fire inspections in Pittsburgh, demonstrating how technology must be paired with policy and equity to solve real urban problems.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Carnegie Mellon, Silicon Labs, World Economic Forum, Qualcomm
Products
Ring
Chips
MEMS
Also
Metro21, Zigbee Alliance, DSRC, LoRaWAN

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