In this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, Zoe speaks with computer programmer and transportation enthusiast, Jacob Baskin. Jacob is the CTO at Coord, New York-based tech company that helps government agencies, companies and professionals get the valuable data they need to build and regulate transportation infrastructure in the way that works best for everyone in the city. In this episode Jacob shares what sparked his interest in the Smart Communities space, and why he feels it’s important. Zoe and Jacob discuss how the US is currently embracing Smart City concepts, including cities taking the lead and putting communities back at the centre of decision making. Jacob also explains a bit about Coord, and why curb-side management is needed more and more in today’s world of ecommerce and ride-share platforms. They also discuss how open data is crucial for any kind of integration and why shared data standards are so important. Zoe and Jacob talking about the emerging trend of cities doing more innovation in-house. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Listen here:

What we cover in this episode:

• Jacob’s background in computer science and his passion for transportation
• What sparked Jacob’s interest in the Smart Community space and why he believes it’s so important
• Some of the problems with parking signs that cities face and how technology could help solve them
• The future of the curb and changes we are seeing in curb-side parking thanks to ride share platforms
• How Jacob sees the US embracing Smart Concepts
• What Coord does and the projects they’re currently working on to help cities manage their curbs
• Why open data is key to integration across disciplines and the need for shared data standards
• The emerging trend of cities doing in-house innovation

Quotes:

“One thing we found out at Coord is that most cities have no idea what parking signs they’ve put out on the street…People put up fake signs and people get real tickets based on those [fake signs].”

“We’re seeing that curb management is becoming an increasingly important thing for cities to do. This is managing who can pick up and drop off passengers, load and unload goods, or park at the side of any given street at any time, and for how long and how much do they have to pay? The rise of ecommerce and the rise of ride hail have made the curb a much more important and a much more contentious space in cities, though of course it’s always been contentious. Cities don’t have the data that they need to manage this.”

“Once you have open data you start to realise that not all open data is created equal, and one of the biggest things that makes open data more useful is being in a form that makes it easier for people to understand. So this is something that we’re trying to make happen on the curb – make there be data standards for understanding this information and for sharing it between people.”

“Often, because we’re tooting our own horns so much, the efforts of private companies get publicised a lot, but the things that happen inside cities which are really great to see, don’t get as much press as they maybe should.”

Connect:

Connect via the website Coord.co or with Jacob on Twitter @jacobbaskin

Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

Podcast Production by Perk Digital