Riverside, CA: Government, Business, Academic innovation

Riverside was recently named the Intelligent Community Forum its community of 2012 from a long list of global competitors. Last year, Eindhoven in the Netherlands got the honors.

?The new CIO, Steve Reneker, renegotiated the city?s outsourcing contract to a ?cost plus? formula, which saved more than $4 million.? The city ploughed it back into refreshing its technology, building a fiber backbone to control city facilities and systems, and building a state-of-the-art network operations center.? An advanced traffic management center now controls the complex flow of traffic and trains to eliminate bottlenecks.? Average commute time through the city has been reduced by 30%.

His team implemented video security in parks and at railroad crossing, using cameras linked to the wireless network, and a Riverside Resident Connect system for reporting problems by phone, email, or submission of a photo taken with a smartphone.? They also built from scratch an innovative graffiti abatement system connecting multiple departments.? City workers take photos of graffiti with their smartphones and transmit them to the system, where pattern recognition software matches it to an ever-growing database of images.? The system generates work orders for removal of the graffiti at the same time it supports preparation of criminal complaints by the City Attorney.? Since its introduction, successful prosecutions have generated $200,000 in restitution for the city, and funded the removal of a lot of graffiti.

Business also did its part.? Supporting the city?s efforts, Riverside?s tech companies began to set up their own incubators to spur innovation. ISCA, which uses electronic technologies to solve pest problems, began offering office space and production facilities to start-ups in 2008.? In 2009, Bourns, a manufacturer of electronic components, established the second incubator.? A maker of customer relationship management systems, Surado, included incubator space in its new Surado Corporate Center.? And Avisio, a publicly traded technology innovation company, established an Innovation Economy Initiative to assist in the commercialization of emerging technologies. ?

Photo Credit

Source: http://florence20.typepad.com/renaissance/2012/07/riverside-ca-government-business-academic-innovation.html

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