The Smart Cities movement continues to forge ahead and evolve, led by innovative municipalities of all sizes. One of the towns at the forefront is Cary, North Carolina, adjacent to the Research Triangle Park and home of the SAS world headquarters.
Cary Chief Information Officer Nicole Raimundo and her team have turned the town into a test bed for Smart Cities technologies. Cary’s Smart and Connected Communities program is innovating new technologies around smart parking, energy and utilities, public safety, transportation and citizen engagement. Projects included smart water metering, detecting opioids in waste water and advanced traffic management.
Flood prediction system earns recognition, marks early success of SAS-Microsoft partnership
Recently, the town worked with SAS and Microsoft to develop a floodwater predicting solution using sensor data, IoT analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data visualization. The system provides real-time alerting and visualization of rising storm water levels allowing for automated response and citizen notification, data sharing with regional partners and prediction of future events. Learn more about it here: https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/townofcary-flood-prediction.html
In June, SAS and Microsoft announced a partnership that made Microsoft Azure the preferred cloud provider for SAS, and plans to launch new joint solutions for customers. One of the first of those joint solutions is Flood Incident Prediction and Preparedness, based on the system built in collaboration with Cary.
In just the last three months, Cary and the flood solution have garnered several accolades:
Given by Government Computer News, the Government Innovation Awards “focuses on transformative tech that is truly reinventing government -- at the federal, state and local levels. That potentially mission-critical impact can stem from a new technology itself or from the innovative ways established tech is being leveraged to make government function better.”
The NC Tech Awards honor North Carolina organizations, businesses and individuals for innovation, excellence and growth. The Cary flood prediction and monitoring project was the winner of the Public Sector Project category. Additionally, the CleanTech award went to GreenStream Technologies, which provides the flood sensors for the project.
Nicole Raimundo was named a GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year in the StateScoop LocalSmart Awards, which “highlight the inspirational people and projects making city, county and municipal governments more efficient and effective.”
Cary’s flood system won the 2020 Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster: Water Innovation Award, which “recognizes a water or wastewater project that uses innovative cleantech solutions to create a positive impact for the environment, economy, and residents of NC.”
SAS and its employees at the world headquarters are lucky to live and work in a town that embraces Smart Cities technologies, including cutting-edge IoT analytics, to improve quality of life. The company has grown along with the town for more than 40 years, and we’re excited to see where that relationship takes us next.
