Smart Community Thinking from the Regional to the Precinct Level, with Pascal Perez

Summary: Happy New Year! Welcome back to the Smart Community Podcast for 2019. In the first episode for the new year I had a great conversation with Pascal Perez. But just before I tell you about that, I wanted to give a quick shout out to my first patrons! As you might know, I have started a Patreon page over at patreon.com/smartcommpod for fans of the podcast who want to support the show and get access to exclusive content. A big thank you to my first patrons for helping keep this show in your podcatchers week after week. If you'd like to support the show, head over to patreon.com/smartcommpod Ok, on with the episode. Pascal Perez is the Director of the SMART Infrastructure Facility at the University of Wollongong. In this episode he tells us about his background in agricultural and environmental engineering around the world, and how he now applies that in the urban development/infrastructure space here in Australia. Pascal shares what sparked his interest in the Smart Community space and why we need to be thinking about Smart People as much as, if not more than, Smart Cities. We discuss the importance of needs-based/problem oriented technology solutions, why regional areas are currently doing this better than the big cities in Australia, and the difference between a revolution and an epidemic when it comes to technology. Pascal then shares about some projects he's currently working on with the University of Wollongong and the SMART Infrastructure Facility, how he sees Australia embracing Smart Concepts, and the problems in the current immature landscape of Smart Cities in Australia, including lack of standardisation and a 'jungle rule' approach. We finish off discussing the emerging trends of the interoperability and security of sensors and IOT devices that make up our Smart Communities. As always, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it. Find the full show notes as: www.mysmart.community Connect with Pascal via email: pascal@uw.edu.au Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @smartcommpod