CenSCIR Sponsored Event Calls for Smart Infrastructure
Article Posted On 9/14/2009
On September 9, 40 attendees met to discuss issues of the world's critical infrastructure at a Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research (CenSCIR) sponsored panel discussion. Specifically, they discussed ways to harness new and emerging smart technologies in order to make roads, bridges, and energy grids more responsive to current and future demands and technologies. Attendees asked such questions as what it would take to have the Smart Grid implemented on a national level; as well as what role government, industry, and academics should play in managing and regulating infrastructure technology.
Speakers included Jurij Paraszczak, from IBM-CTO Venture Capital Group and director of Emerging Business Research and Smarter Planet Initiative; Benson Gabler, manager of corporate sustainability with PNC Financial Services Group; Guy Costa, director of public works with the City of Pittsburgh; Burcu Akinci, CenSCIR faculty member; and Piervincenzo Rizzo, assistant professor with Structural Health Monitoring, in the Department of Civil Engineering, at the University of Pittsburgh. CenSCIR graduate students conducted a demonstration showing how to wirelessly activate and monitor lighting and other heterogeneous devices through the Sensor Andrew infrastructure using only web access.
