The Steora Solar Smart Bench presented by the Fibrex Group has been chosen as a finalist in the Old Dominion University’s Lions’s Lair Innovation Competition! Sponsored by the Strome Entreprenerial Center at ODU, this competition is seeking to find the most innovative and exciting ideas to social, cultural, or environmental problems. The panel of judges narrowed the select finalists down from a large group of applicants. Product pitches will take place on Friday, November 4, 2016 in ODU’s Webb Center in front of a panel of independent professionals involved in entrepreneurship.

The Steora Smart Bench unique design provides self-sustaining green solar energy to power a large suite of applications such as cell phone charging, WiFi Hot Spot Internet Connection, area LED lighting, sensor data gathering capabilities and temperature control. Yes, it even has a built-in cooling fan system to keep the seating area below 80⁰F on hot days!

Because mobile technology is such an essential aspect of modern life, properties want to support and attract the mobile generation by providing more charging device options than ever before. Make your public spaces smarter and greener with the Steora Smart Bench.

The Fibrex Group is excited to present the Steora Solar Smart Bench to a panel of experts next week. Stay tuned for final results!

This Halloween skip the disposable plastic decorations and heavily packaged (and unhealthy) candy. Celebrating Halloween can be more fun, cheaper, and healthier for you and the environment if you follow these simple tips for a green Halloween. They’ll save you money, too.

1. Re-use costumes. Tap into the treasures hidden in your closet or attic to pull together a fun, no-cost costume (it won’t take any longer than going to the mall, and will be a lot cheaper). Trade costumes with friends and family if you don’t want to wear last year’s get-up. Shop for accessories at yard sales or resale stores. Use your imagination but don’t obsess. The point is to have fun, not be fashionable!

2. Trick and treat.  In lieu of junk food, hand out pencils made from recycled paper, erasers, nickels or dimes – be creative!. My husband used to live in the same neighborhood as baseball legend Casey Stengel – he gave out silver dollars. My neighbor started doling out small cups of apple cider when she realized how much kids love a drink when they’re running around like banshees. NatureMoms offers lots of great links to organic lollipops and other fun and healthy treats.

3. Reverse trick and treating. Global Exchange and other charities encourage kids to help educate adults about Fair Trade cocoa by handing Fair Trade chocolates back as they trick or treat. The chocolates are attached to a card explaining why Fair Trade offers an alternative to child labor, low wages for farmers and a healthier environment.

4. Have a party. If you opt to celebrate at home in lieu of trick or treating, put out bowls of snacks rather than serve up individual throwaway treat bags. Offer popcorn, hummus and pita chips, carrots and dips, fresh apple cider, bat-shaped cookies and muffins. Kids will enjoy painting pumpkins, decorating cupcakes, reading scary stories, bobbing for apples, and going on “flashlight hunts” in the yard (if the party’s after dark) for hidden Halloween surprises. Send electronic invitations to avoid wasting paper and postage.

5. Decorate with Nature. A trip to your yard or the farmers market will provide everything you need to dress up your house for Halloween: leaves and branches, hay bales, gourds, pumpkins, mums, dried flowers.

6. Light up the night. If you string lights (especially to keep walkways safe for kids), use strands of LEDs, which you can get at any hardware store these days. They use much less energy than conventional holiday twinklers. Illuminate carved pumpkins with candles from beeswax or soy . Decorate windows and glass door panes with washable crayons or chalk. If kids need flashlights to get around in the dark, try one of the many flashlights that can be recharged with solar energy.

7. Turn it over to the kids. Forget the store-bought hanging witches and skeletons. Have your kids make hand print spiders for the walls and windows. Recycle egg cartons into bats. Carve and paint pumpkins.

8. Try a new bag. The best option for candy collectors is last year’s bag; a pillowcase; or a reusable shopping bag with handles.

9. Save for next year. When Halloween is over, pack up costumes, treat bags, lights, and decorations in one big box or bag. Store everything in an easy-to-find place so next year, you don’t have to start completely from scratch.

10. Get even more ideas. Between Green Halloween and the Green Moms Carnival, you’ll find everything you need to know to make your spooky night as eco as possible.

*Original posted by: http://www.biggreenpurse.com/top-ten-eco-tips/top-ten-green-cheap-halloween/

The immense hype around the Internet of Things (IoT) certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by businesses, as IDC’s latest research revealed that 31% of companies surveyed have already deployed IoT, with another 43% looking to deploy within the next 12 months. However, a recent study from the IoT Institute shows that only 25% of businesses feel that they have a clear IoT strategy.

What this data suggests is that businesses continue to rush into the IoT fray, but that many are doing so without asking the fundamental question of “Why?”

To predict the IoT future, it helps to look to the past

Without an answer to that critical question, it’s hard to develop a clear business strategy around IoT. Are you pursuing IoT in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs? To introduce new revenue models? Or to deliver new services that enhance your customers’ experiences? Once you know what business outcomes you’re trying to accomplish, the business case for IoT is much easier to define.

The industry has been talking a lot about “digital transformation” over the past couple of years, focusing on the efforts companies are undertaking to transform the way they do business based on new connected technologies. And IoT plays a key role in enabling this transformation for today’s businesses. So by identifying the clear business outcomes and goals you want to achieve with IoT, your roadmap to digital transformation becomes much clearer.

When it comes to defining an IoT strategy, though, too often companies focus solely on how they are going to connect their assets or products. There seems to be a belief that if you connect them, the benefits will roll in.

But IoT isn’t just about connecting things – it’s about engaging in a conversation.

This is what’s most exciting about IoT (and what enables a true shift in the way you do business and make money) – the ability to have a constant conversation with the customers and end-users that utilize those assets and products. And do it in on a massively scalable level.

Always-on means always engaged

IoT provides the always-on connectivity needed to establish an ongoing services relationship with your customers. But this connectivity is merely a means to an end, enabling you to learn and understand how customers are using those products, to learn about the environment in which those products operate, and ultimately use those learnings to find new ways to deliver value.

A packaged food distributor can use a connected vending machine to understand the buying patterns of their customers and ensure that the right snacks are stocked at appropriate times to maximize their sales. A heavy machinery manufacturer can offer a “zero downtime” service that analyzes machine performance and makes sure 3rd party suppliers have parts on hand just in time for replacement. That manufacturer can monetize both the value added service as well as the partner relationship, again by constantly listening to their end users.

So, what best practices should you keep in mind as you bridge the gap from merely connecting devices to achieving business outcomes through a real-time conversation with customers?

1. Think about scale

As you plan your IoT business it’s important to select IoT solutions and business partners that will enable you to scale your connected services over time. Start by selecting a networking strategy that has global reach so that you can quickly and cost-effectively expand your IoT services into new countries as customer demand dictates. In many cases, using the mobile network is an obvious choice. It is ubiquitous, reliable, secure and increasingly cost-effective. Simultaneously, selecting an IoT connectivity management platform that is widely deployed and deeply integrated into the mobile networks worldwide ensures your IoT service is ready for global deployment and scale.

2. Embrace the cloud

Cloud-based IoT platforms will give you the flexibility and efficiency to get to market quickly with your IoT services. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model of such platforms means your connected services can be agile, benefitting from rapid cycles of innovation and the on-demand scale of cloud-based implementations.

3. Automate, automate, automate

IoT and digital transformation is nothing if not characterized by business process automation. Managing connected devices should not get in the way of figuring out how to deliver value out of the conversation. A properly designed IoT platform lets you do just that. Whether it is provisioning the connected services, diagnosing service performance or managing ongoing costs, an IoT platform can automate away many of those tasks, freeing you up to manage your core business. In short, let connectivity work for you – not the other way around – as you uncover new sources of revenue.

Starting that IoT conversation

It’s important to remember that IoT is not solely about things being connected, it’s about the services you can enable through that connectivity. And those services provide the foundation for an ongoing conversation and relationship with your customers that enables you to continuously adapt and better meet their needs over time.

For this reason, companies that focus first on the tactics of connecting their products – instead of the services they plan to deliver and the ongoing conversation those services enable with their customers – often end up having to refine their strategy later on. Instead, begin by identifying the services that you want to deliver to your customers to enhance their experiences, then invest in an IoT strategy that lets you focus on that always-on conversation.

*Originally posted 10/5/16 by Sanjay Khatri in PLATFORMS

American Cities: Plan now to apply for a 2017 grant

How to apply

The call for entries will open October 31, 2016 and cities must submit an application no later than December 31, 2016. Winners will be selected and announced by January 31, 2017.

The application will be available on this page starting October 31st, 2016. For more information or to register your interest, email Chief Scientist Dr. Stuart Cowan,GrantApplication@SmartCitiesCouncil.com.

About the grant

As part of the White House smart cities initiative, the Smart Cities Council commits to award five (5) Smart Cities Council Challenge Grants to help five American cities apply smart technologies to improve urban livability, workability and sustainability. For each of the five winning cities, the Council will deliver a tailored one-day Readiness Program during the 2017 calendar year. And members of the Council will deliver additional benefits to each of the five cities, as described below.

The Readiness Program menu

For each winning city, the Council will deliver a one-day smart cities workshop. Participants from the city will include approximately 100 government leaders, private sector and academic experts, and other key local stakeholders. The Council will custom design each workshop to the special needs of that city.

The Readiness Program provides a significant in-kind contribution of professional services; access to best practices from some of the world’s top smart city practitioners; access to the expertise of leading smart cities technology providers in a vendor-neutral setting; the opportunity to learn from peer cities; and international visibility on the Council’s website and newsletter.

Additional grants and benefits

In addition to the Readiness Program winning cities will also receive these additional benefits from Council Partners and Advisors:

• Ameresco will consult with each of the five cities on optimizing smart street lighting as part of an overall smart city strategy.
• AT&T will provide a donation of up to 25 AT&T IoT Starter Kits at no cost to each of the selected cities.
• CH2M and Qualcomm will partner to host a one-day follow-on workshop for each city to develop a work plan for development and deployment of a Smart Cities Council ecosystem.
• Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) will provide each winning city with a one-year Premier membership and online access to all of its research and materials.
• Dow Building & Construction will provide consultation on optimizing building design as a part of a smart city ecosystem.
• IDC’s Government Insights Smart Cities Strategies research advisory service will provide each city a Smart City maturity benchmark.
• Sensus will provide each winning city a hosted smart city communication network free of charge for one year.
• Telit will provide each city free access to the Telit IoT platform, which provides comprehensive functions for connecting devices, managing devices and integrating the data.
• TM Forum will provide its expertise and its Smart City Maturity and Benchmark model free of charge to help the cities quickly assess their strengths and weaknesses and to set clear goals for transformation.
• Transdev will provide each selected city with up to three days of free consultation and technical assistance to look at ways of providing new and more efficient mobility options.

Criteria for selection

Cities will fill out a grant application to be considered. Winners will be selected according to the following criteria.

• Population greater than 100,000 (may combine with neighboring cities to reach population threshold)
• Demonstrate commitment by including a cover letter from the mayor or city manager affirming the city’s official entry
• Demonstrate capacity by briefly listing existing smart city practices, policies, programs, and planning efforts and by providing a liaison to assist with the event
• Demonstrate a commitment to widespread stakeholder engagement by sharing a list of the leadership and organizations they propose to invite.
• Agree to the Smart City Principles espoused by the Smart Cities Council, which call for an inclusive, equitable, “people-first” approach
• Propose at least three theme areas that represent city priorities.
• Propose at least one theme area for discussion that applies smart technologies to help vulnerable or marginalized people or neighborhoods
• Agree to allow the Council to publish high-level summaries of their event on the Council’s website
• Supply a venue suitable for plenary sessions of at least 100 plus at least four break-out spaces
• Located in the United States

Register your interest

For more information or to register your interest, email Chief Scientist Dr. Stuart Cowan, GrantApplication@SmartCitiesCouncil.com

Original info posted here 9/26/16: http://smartcitiescouncil.com/article/white-house-commitment-smart-cities-council-challenge-grants