Montgomery wins smart city honor, gets year-long tech program

More than 100 cities across North America entered a grant competition, detailing their work to push technology and create a better life for their citizens.

After an exhaustive process, the Smart Cities Readiness Challenge named Montgomery one of its five winners. Alabama’s Capital City now gets access to a year-long technology program, including workshops, mentoring and digital tools to help Montgomery reach its long-term goals.

It also means that the city will host a convention of tech industry insiders that could bring thousands of forward-thinkers and company officials here. “It’s a great opportunity to show what we’ve done and challenge us to stay ahead,” said Lou Ialacci, the chief information technology officer for the city and county. “We’ll have the opportunity with that conference here to learn from those people and teach them.”

The Smart Cities Council, which awards the grant, praised Montgomery for using artificial intelligence to assess road conditions, as well as its work to extend free Wi-Fi access to students. It also praised its approach in building partnerships between business and government groups to keep things moving forward.

Each entrant had to answer dozens of essay questions about their goals, accomplishments and plans. Montgomery and 10 other finalists were then interviewed over a conference call. Ialacci said representatives from the city, the county, the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, Montgomery Public Schools, Alabama Power, TechMGM and more participated in each step, communicating a unified vision across different sectors.

Earlier this year, the city announced a partnership between several of those groups to launch a “Smart City Living Lab” along Commerce Street and Dexter Avenue that includes a new fiberoptic network, new LED street lights, free Wi-Fi, smart parking and other initiatives.

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The other winners of the Smart City Readiness Challenge were Baltimore, which has a similar public-private partnership; Racine, Wisconsin, which is launching its own version of a smart city lab; Cleantech San Diego, which is organizing a regional effort in California; and Edmonton, Canada, which is using open data and partnerships to expand its existing smart city efforts.

In announcing the honor, Montgomery officials stood in front of a crowd of representatives from schools, business and more and said they won the honor because they’re all invested in progress.

“If we continue to be the teammates that we are… we will continue to win,” Montgomery County Commission Chairman Dean said.