If you've gone to a tech conference,
literally any tech conference in the last five years,
you would walk away with the impression that the connected, easy-to-navigate,
clean and green smart city is just around the corner.
The reality and the hype is
that many companies are working on products and solutions to get there.
Take transportation, for example.
Allegedly, in the city of the future
you will be able to seamlessly plan your journey from public transportation
to shared autonomous taxis and even electric scooters.
If you own a car, it will be electric,
and there will be charging stations strategically placed throughout the city.
So all you do is type your location into your GPS,
and it will automatically take you to your location
in the minimum amount of time
and any payment you need for charging
will be done automatically in the background.
Now you might say, wait a minute,
there are companies that are doing this today.
I can do this today.
But it’s individual companies,
and it's certainly not ubiquitous across the city.
But it doesn't just stop with transportation.
Let's take health.
In the future, there will be air-quality monitors at every street corner,
and they will be connected with your asthma inhaler
so that you know when it's safe to go out.
Or there will be infrared cameras
that are measuring the temperature of citizens anonymously
and that will be connected with your thermometer
so that we can detect future outbreaks.
And of course, you will also have your wearable device
that connected to your bathroom scale and your smart refrigerator
so that nutritionists, doctors and other companies
can come up with new ways to keep you, you know,
slim and and trim as I am.
Then of course, there's shopping.
I mean, when you shop today, you know,
you purchase from different retailers
and you receive multiple shipments during the course of the day.
Now, if you had an app where you could set your preferences
and those shipments can be consolidated
and maybe you receive fewer shipments during the week,
a little bit less convenient,
but you get to reduce your carbon footprint.
So these are all great ideas and solutions and products
that companies are working on,
but they all share an underlying requirement
that could make that smart city
more of a distant dream than a reality just around the corner.
And that is the need for greater sharing of data across companies,
individuals and cities.
And if there's one thing that we've learned
is that companies don't like to share data,
they don't even like to share our own data with us.
So let alone data with competitors or partners.
And therein lies the dilemma,
because if we want to have a chance at really combating climate change,
we need to have our cities become as smart and as connected
as quickly as possible, and as many cities as possible.
So we need to overcome this fear of data sharing
and move towards the smart-city future.
But why is it that companies fear sharing data?
Well, it’s what I call “FOMA”.
Not FOMO,
the fear of missing out on a great party or either opportunity,
but FOMA, the fear of missing out on competitive advantage.
Data is a source of competitive advantage.
So why would companies want to give it up?
In our research, over the last two years,
we've been looking at many different solutions
that would improve the citizen experience
and as well sustainability solutions for cities.
And what we found is that 85 percent of those solutions
require much more data sharing
across companies, individuals and cities.
So the question really comes,
how do we motivate companies to share more of their data?
We need to actually overcome this fear quickly
if we want to make meaningful progress on climate change.
Well, as we talked to a number of companies
that were building platforms and ecosystems in different verticals
like logistics, transportation,
smart buildings, smart cities,
we asked about what it would take to drive greater data sharing
across these different solutions.
And what we heard were the usual concerns:
data sharing is costly, it’s complicated.
And companies were concerned about unintended disclosures
that could risk their brand.
However, there was one exception.
And this, I think, is promising.
Companies were more willing to share their data
if it could serve a broader common purpose beyond commercial motivations.
And in particular,
they're more willing to share their data beyond their own four walls
if that data sharing could help fight climate change.
Let's take, for example, a few car companies
that actually are fierce competitors,
and they got together
and started to share detailed mapping data
so they could develop better solutions for routing trucks,
so they spend less time idling
and also could route trucks in a city
based on prevailing wind patterns to reduce smog.
These are pretty cool solutions that companies are working on.
But the real question is,
if this common purpose of fighting climate change
can help leaders overcome their data sharing FOMA,
how do we get them to actually do it?
Well, in our work, we found that it takes three actions
to jump-start a virtuous cycle of data sharing and innovation.
First, companies need to look for new, unexpected sources of data.
Second, they need to develop new sustainability solutions quickly.
And third, they need to act together for change.
Let's take finding new, unexpected partners for data.
Well, what I mean by that
is looking well beyond the four walls of a company
for sources of data that can be combined with a company's own
to analyze and develop new sustainability solutions.
But let me give a specific example.
Let's take farming.
Farming historically has been more art than science.
You've had farmers that make decisions on when to plant,
what fertilizer to apply, when to irrigate, etc.,
based on their own personal experience and knowledge of the farm.
Do you remember "Star Trek"
and when Spock could scan the surface of a planet
to know what the habitat was, using the sensors from the “Enterprise”,
and they could tell whether the planet could support human life?
Well, I know I'm dating myself and I'm a bit of a geek,
but that science fiction is becoming a reality today.
You have data from satellites,
from drones, from sensors on the field,
from connected farming equipment that is collecting data.
All of that can be combined
so that farmers can make better real-time decisions on
how to improve their overall crop yield,
reduce the amount of fertilizer and other chemicals they need,
and also conserve scarce resources like water.
So they can improve their income,
lower their costs,
and now they can even start generating new income sources
by planting carbon-absorbing crops and getting paid for that.
So really quite fascinating what's happening in agriculture.
Next comes innovating quickly new sustainability solutions.
What I'm talking about is not your typical long product road map,
but we need to have companies hire data scientists
that can analyze all these different data sources
and in new, agile ways,
bring new products and services to market.
We need to use data and digital quickly to fight climate change.
Finally, acting together.
Now let me come back to the smart-city example.
If we had transportation companies and utilities
and buildings share data with the city,
then the city could make better decisions on investing in renewable energy projects.
That could mean that you lower your energy bill
and also reduce your carbon footprint.
Or that transportation data can be used to decide
where charging stations are needed
so that we can accelerate the speed of adoption of electric vehicles.
And that means maybe you spend less time in traffic,
but also your air is cleaner.
So to really make progress on more sustainable energy,
we need to have data sharing across buildings, transportation and utilities.
All of this data sharing needs to come together for a brighter future.
Now ...
You also have a critical role to play.
Of course, we individually need to be in control of our own data.
Imagine you have an app that allows you to set preferences
so that data from your car, from your utilities,
from your shopping patterns can be shared
and you can make decisions about your own carbon footprint
in a very easy way.
So you can run "what if" scenarios.
What if I purchase an electric car?
What if I take the train from Boston to New York versus fly?
Or what if I change my shopping pattern so I shop more locally?
How much will that impact my overall carbon footprint?
Would you be willing to share more data
to have more sustainable climate
and to make those climate-friendly decisions?
Well, I for one, I'm pretty excited about this future,
a future where greater data sharing
can really help us jointly combat climate change.
What we need is for company leaders to move away from FOMA
and back to good old-fashioned FOMO.
The future is bright if all that data can be shared,
and I don't think we really want to miss out.
Thank you.
(Applause)