County Presents SCALE at White House

County Executive Ike Leggett led the Montgomery County “team” June 10 in making a presentation to senior White House staff and policy advisors and industry executives as Montgomery County unveiled its achievements in the SmartAmerica Challenge.

The SmartAmerica Challenge is sponsored by The White House Presidential Innovation Fellows and the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST).

This prestigious initiative brought together different sectors to demonstrate innovative cyber technology pilot projects with the potential for enhancing socio-economic benefits for our residents, creating jobs in our communities, and promoting new business opportunities throughout America.

The Montgomery County project, “SCALE: Safe Community Alert Network,” is a collaborative partnership with the County involving researchers from UC-Irvine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with multiple vendors including IBM, the French-based low-bandwidth provider Sigfox, and Twilio, a cloud communication firm.

Using low-cost advanced sensor and receiving technology, the pilot network demonstrates deployment of a public sector automated safety alert and community awareness network that protects vulnerable populations. Working with the Montgomery County Housing Partnership (an affordable housing developer in the County), SCALE has deployed a variety of connected sensors in a Rockville apartment building that will detect different environmental distress factors (e.g., smoke, heat, carbon monoxide, hazardous gas), transmit the data to a cloud service, and, if a problem is detected, dispatch emergency response services.

Councilmember Hans Riemer, whose discussions with Montgomery County technology leaders led him to ask the county to participate in the challenge, said, “Montgomery County’s tech team has done a remarkable job crafting a public sector vision for the Internet of Things through its entry in the SmartAmerica Challenge. I look forward to building more partnerships with private sector tech leaders to better position our county as a national innovation hub.”

June 11, Montgomery County made a public presentation at the SmartAmerica Challenge Exposition at the Washington D.C. Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place NW. Detailed information is available at www.smartamerica.org.

See a synopsis of the “Safe Community Alert Network” pilot project.

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