Carolina can go to hell, always. But from one accredited university to another, all nerds can share noteworthy academic achievements and ventures.
Let's focus our sights on Chattanooga, Tennessee. As the first location in the western hemisphere to have fiber internet available throughout the city, this city is becoming extremely productive, and taking the lead in several advancements. Several Morehead-Cain Scholars at UNC-Chapel Hill have paired with organizations such as the Bookings Institute, the Lyndhurst Foundation and the Enterprise Center in an attempt to determine the success rating of the city's new planning mechanisms.
Jack Amoroso, a Carolina freshman, Morehead-Cain Scholar and a childhood friend whom I rarely speak to during basketball season, summarized his research team's objectives: “They are asking us to determine the metrics to gauge success of innovation districts in cities so that it can be scale to cities like Boston and Philadelphia which have similar projects.”
Amoroso, and five other scholars, will be moving to Chattanooga for two months upon completion of their final exams. All funding and accommodations have been made possible by Morehead-Cain alumni.
With a 21st century focus on entrepreneurial and technological “smart” movements, once-revolutionary smart cars are now a mere achievement of the past. “Smart” is starting to tackle all facets of modern civilization. In September 2015, the White House announced the launch of a new “Smart Cities” Initiative, which “will invest over $160 million in federal research and leverage more than 25 new technology collaborations to help local communities tackle key challenges.”
The Morehead-Cain Foundation has wasted very little time waiting for others to find such projects while they are still in their most susceptible and pliable form. Amoroso is part of the foundation’s first Civic Collaboration Summer.
While Chattanooga is no Silicon Valley, both the successes and failures of its innovative initiatives will translate to cities far beyond Tennessee borders. Cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona and Stockholm have been working on similar collaborations and initiatives since the early 1990s.
North Carolina is charting its own territory on the “smart” map as well. CityDSK, a project developed by the U.S. Census Bureau, is a mechanism through which innovators associate localized data with national data. The U.S. Government looked to North Carolina in its pioneering efforts to create new apps based upon public data. With federal, state and city data hypothetically transparent, the Bureau is hoping “the pilot will be helping cities break down data silos to enable smarter disaster response.”
Such pioneering efforts are quite familiar to a Blue Devil. Text alerts from 672-83 at far too early hours of the morning accompanied by emails alerting the Duke community of armed robberies on Central may be a long lost, principle argument for why Ryan Howard’s WUPHF invention really was quite extraordinary. Extraordinary doesn’t even cut it—innovative and progressive does it far more justice.
Those fearful of the power of technology should take a good, hard look at the realities of the twenty-first century. In order to sustain the inevitable lifestyle brought forth by the early hunter-gatherers, society needs to adapt to the idea of plausibility. Beyond environmental concerns lies the burdening of question of how it is going to be even slightly possible to sustain a proposed population of 11.2 billion in 2100.
So, Duke, it’s time to reinvent the wheel. Let’s reevaluate our innovation districts—from Shooters to Marketplace—and determine our own metrics to gauge success. If this is a cliff off which everyone is jumping, I say we ignore our parents' advice, and jump off, too. With grant support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the “MetroLab Network will leverage university expertise to address challenges facing cities and regions across the country.” With over 60 city-university collaborations already underway (UNC-Chapel Hill not included, so don’t fret) we’re all headed in that direction. Innovation is happening in our own backyards: Envision America’s workshop is held in Charlotte and Duke Energy has front row seats.
Regardless of school and major, all sectors of business, finance, medicine, education, etc., will find themselves immersed in the changing dynamics of modern sustainability. Our world is finally taking a real look at the relationship between sustainability, efficiency, technology and community. But is this a slippery slope? Are we maybe, quite possibly, planting the seeds of a future defined by robots and hovercrafts, and what does that mean? Well, that's up to us.
Mary Coyne is a Trinity sophomore.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.