SMART Community Review (SCR) SMART Community Exchange 2018 Program | Page 26
21st Century Vocational Education and Training Program
Building A SMART Workforce to Implement and Manage New Technologies
SMART
Community Exchange
As SMART communities increase, the need for a
SMART workforce increases. Communities across the
world are implementing SMART electricity, water, and
natural gas meters that are connected to the cloud to
give subscribers fine-grained control over their resource
usage. SMART communities are using sensors and real-
time data to solve specific problems in areas such as
health, transportation, sanitation, public safety,
e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , s u s t a i n a b i l i t y, s t r e e t
maintenance, and resilience. Communities can now use
technology tools for much finer-grained access and
management of their streets, above-ground assets,
belowground assets, land, and building. Drivers are
using apps that work with community-provided road
closure data to navigate city streets more efficiently.
Emergency (911) - dispatch centers are integrated with
third-party smart-phone apps to help Good Samaritans
know when, where, and how someone nearby needs
CPR. These and many other new technologies reflect
the transformation of SMART communities, and a need
for more effective approaches to data integration and
sharing, and professional management of SMART.
Making the most of new technologies in communities
implies having a workforce with the necessary skills,
within governments and within local communities.
Training certificates, curriculum, and mini-degrees can
help to create a SMART workforce to implement and
manage technology-based innovation in SMART
communities.
Vocational Education and Training (VET)
21st Century VET aims at improving the fit between
local training and local employment opportunities.
21VET fosters training associated with innovative
technology relevant to SMART communities and new
and evolving capabilities to use technology both to
deliver training and facilitate the match of people to
SMART training and to SMART jobs.
www.SMARTCommunityExchange.com
Technology suppliers are invited to contribute to the
21VET program. Companies can share their new
technology and training programs through 21VET cloud-
based SMART learning platform. The platform is
designed to help educational institutions
build a
SMART workforce capable of deploying and managing
new technologies in SMART communities.
Certification Standards and Goals Beyond the
Building Level
Improving the quality of life in different ways at the
district level would benefit from new district- and city-
scale certifications that reward excellence in, for
example, local energy management and other
environmental outcomes. The objective of such
certifications is to go beyond LEED-ND certification to
create a rolling challenge for urban innovation as well as
provide a means for setting specific targets and
measuring progress. Such certifications should
encourage innovative solutions for achieving the highest
levels of performance, feature ways to combine function
(e.g., energy-efficiency) with attention to equitable
distribution of benefits (e.g., credit for use in
disadvantaged areas), and plan for periodic revision of
their parameters to ensure continued challenge and
open-ended innovation. With a well-recognized rating
system, districts can more effectively identify and
achieve high standards (for example for energy and/or
water conservation or reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions), with additional incentives through
recognition by a public designation (e.g., “Energy Star
Districts” or some other suitable term). A tiered
recognition system would provide incentives for districts
within cities to deploy energy-efficient technologies,
distributed renewable power generation, healthy mobility
(e.g., walkable neighborhoods, bike sharing, electric
vehicles), micro-grids, and other known contributors to
greenness, mobility, and socioeconomic enablement.
Model neighborhoods that achieve, for example, carbon-
neutrality and the highest levels of energy autonomy and
resilience earn attention and attract investment,
businesses and residents.
Contact: [email protected]