Chattanooga to be considered as one of the world’s smartest cities

Thanks to advanced fiber-optic penetration and other measures taken to push Chattanooga toward the 21st century, the city soon could be under consideration as one of the world’s most “Intelligent Communities,” said Robert Bell, co-founder of a New York City-based think tank, at a luncheon Friday hosted by the Chattanooga Technology Council.

Business and community leaders sat in rapt attention as Bell played a video featuring Fatboy Slim’s 2006 hit, “Right Here, Right Now.” Hundreds of statistics flashed across the screen, leading attendees to an inevitable conclusion: the world economy is quickly changing, and the winners are those who change with it.

Luckily, Bell said, Chattanooga stands ready to join the worldwide fraternity of communities with widespread broadband access and other technologically driven innovations that could catapult the city into the international spotlight if leaders correctly leverage Chattanooga’s strengths.

“We’re in a completely new economy, where multinational corporations can run operations around the planet,” Bell said. “Communities can either pretend that isn’t going on, or they can adapt so they can prosper.”

The goal, he said, is to build the 21st-century equivalent of airports, highways and bridges to bring jobs, entrepreneurship and intelligent growth.

The Intelligent Community Forum, which became an independent organization in 2004 when it held a New York City summit on “building the broadband economy,” researches and judges cities based not only on their broadband penetration, but on collaboration between business and community leaders toward the goal of greater prosperity for all.

Chattanooga’s history of collaboration, he said, sprang out of desperation. Decades ago, the city was polluted and the economy had run its course.

Community leaders worked to “clean up the city’s act,” turn industrial wasteland into parkland, and “give the city back its pride,” Bell said.

Now, the recent creation of a high-speed communications environment could boost the city’s international competitive edge, he said.

Jim Frierson, executive director of the Advanced Transportation Technology Institute in Chattanooga, said the city’s technological advantage is a recent development.

“Only two years ago we weren’t benefiting from a smart grid, we didn’t have technology providers competing for our attention, we didn’t have a dialog going on about a major automotive OEM and we weren’t an electric vehicle participant,” Frierson said. “Now we are in that position, and that works to the benefit to not just people that are in technology, but the people who benefit from the use of it.”

Bell compared Chattanooga’s success to other cities like Cleveland, Ohio; Bristol, Va.; and Moncton, Canada, that have not only prioritized broadband access but have taken the next step to monetize citywide connectivity.

Some attendees disagreed with the top-down approach to innovation Bell appeared to advocate.

“There’s a fine line between enabling private industry to flourish, and competing with private industry,” said Mike Harrison, systems architect for Chattanooga-based UtiliFlex.

Robert Philips, executive director of the Chattanooga Technology Council, said now that the city has taken part in the “fundamental re-ordering going on” in the economy, the next step is to reach out to businesses and entrepreneurs to create job growth in the city.

“How do we cultivate and tailor our market for this particular region; how do we tailor a message specific to Chattanooga?,” he asked.

While there were no answers to that question at the luncheon, there was a “self-reality check” for technology leaders, according to Chris Daly, director of technology development and transfer at the Enterprise Center.

“He helped us understand what we have to offer so now we can say, maybe we do have what it takes,” Daly said.