Smart City

Smart City Sentinel

A Smarter, Cleaner & More Dynamic Denver: Connecting the Mile-High City

By Arti Loftus

It’s no wonder that one of the most naturally beautiful and dynamic, modern cities in the world – home to hundreds of successful technology companies and start-ups – is leading the way in the U.S. when it comes to developing a comprehensive Smart City initiative.

It’s been four years since Denver’s city leadership began to understand the positive potential of investing in a more connected city. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge “galvanized the City and County of Denver to think of transformative, multidisciplinary Smart City projects that could improve mobility,” according to city government officials.

Denver was one of seven national finalists who won financial support to address knowledge barriers and technological hurdles to create a game plan now being implemented and is serving as an example for other U.S. regions. With a focus on innovative technologies, vehicle electrification and connected neighborhoods, the city has project underway, including one inspired by Panasonic’s public-private partnership with Denver, which continues to accelerate the creation of technology solutions and thousands of high-quality new jobs.

Like many other urban areas, Denver has been facing growth challenges, including congestion, crime, smog and other environmental issues, an aging public infrastructure and desire for clean economic development.

Given that over 23% of residents live near or below the poverty rate, the notion of “mobility” has a triple bottom line; with the Denver Smart City project, mobile phones will become even more useful, electric and automated vehicles will make driving safer and ease congestion, but perhaps most importantly, the upward mobility of citizens will be given a new lift as tech jobs grow.

Denver’s strategy is to integrate technology into the built environment, bridging the cyber and physical worlds, and using data and modeling to create modern solutions that can do everything from reducing, detecting, and preventing traffic accidents by fully integrating intelligent transportation systems and public safety systems to bringing more broadband access to all, leading to greater education, inclusion, innovation and equity.

One fast-growing Smart City solutions company with offices in Denver is Clovity, a San Francisco bay area based IoT platform and managed service provider. Clovity's technology and teams have been helping Fortune 500 enterprises and high growth mid-market technology companies with large connected products and services, with a fully integrated device-to-cloud-to-enterprise solutions platform that includes big data analytics.

Clovity announced last week that they have been awarded and named a Prime vendor for the Denver Smart City initiative. Starting from over 500 different RFP submissions, Clovity's passed multiple rounds of screening to earn Prime Vendor status.

Clovity is being tapped to drive innovation using data to address the real problems residents face in 4 major areas, according to an announcement issued by the company. Those areas include:

  • The Healthy People & Places Initiative is focused on developing partnerships, infrastructure, networks and programs to foster profound change for a sustainable city.
  • The Connected Mobility Initiative which integrates technology with the built environment to improve safety and to provide flexible, affordable and accessible multi-modal options for everyone.
  • The IoT Platform & Data Management initiative will integrate IoT with the built environment, building connected data sets for safety, mobility, transportation, freight and weather in one place which will allow for predictive analytics and timely decision-making with an emphasis on safety and security.
  • The Innovative Pilots and Partnerships Initiative pulls together the best and brightest, focused on implementing the most innovative ideas.

“We are very excited to be providing true value through our partnership with the City and County of Denver,” said Chris Medina, Chief Strategy Officer of Clovity. "We are proud to join them on their path to a Smart City and Healthier citizen lifestyle. Being selected further demonstrates Clovity's ability to provide enterprise scale IoT solutions as well as provide key technical services that are proven in the IoT community."

Medina indicated that over the next few weeks and months, plans for specific solutions will be detailed, and in collaboration with other technology, connectivity and service partners will be designed, tested, implemented and continuously developed as the Smart City grows.

“While we work in many IoT and Industrial IoT areas, there are few projects as meaningful and inspiring as lighting up smart cities,” Medina said. “The City of Denver’s leaders have an ambitious vision, and a comprehensive plan that is inclusive and built on a framework of public-private partnership and trust. We will look back on our collaboration with them and the entire community of businesses like ours, who are honored to be selected to serve, and be proud of the outcomes: cleaner air, safer streets, better lives. We live and work in this city and are grateful every day to be part of such a vibrant, strong place, where opportunities for education, training, jobs, careers and the creation of value is fully supported by local, state and federal agencies who have a vision for a truly connected future.”


Arti Loftus is an experienced Information Technology specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the research, writing, and editing industry with many published articles under her belt.

Edited by Ken Briodagh
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