MIT Solve

Step 2

Our Solution

Smart and Sustainable Cities Cohort

Our solution's stage of development:

Pre-Seed

Our solution:

Our program provides instruction, preparation and testing for LEED Green Associates, LEED Neighborhood Development and EcoDistricts to minority and women-owned small businesses in communities across the continent. With these accreditations our members will create sustainable communities focused on equity, resilience, resistance to climate change and food and water protection.

Our pitch:

The Smart & Sustainable Neighborhood Development Program takes a cohort of local minority and women small businesses and provides training for 3 top sustainability accreditations, providing the tools to design and develop sustainable infrastructure needed that addresses the needs of an ever-growing urban population.

EcoDistricts- A framework for development focused on 3 imperatives: equity, resilience and resistance to climate change. Accredited Professionals guide communities in certifying an EcoDistrict by addressing all 3 imperatives with objectives that have quantifiable and measurable goals.

LEED Green Associate (GA)- The initial accreditation for LEED, the most recognized standard for green building. Green Associates training focuses on the most current green building principles and practices and introduces the rating system for certifying a building in LEED.

LEED Neighborhood Development (ND)- Extending the LEED standard to the design and development of ble community-scale development to drive the creation of better, more sustainable, well connected neighborhoods.

LEED is the global market standard for green building; certified projects emit 34% less greenhouse gas and have diverted 80 millions of waste from landfills. With the accreditation our cohort will be able to deliver cutting-edge sustainable building and neighborhoods around the world.

Ecodistricts allows our cohort to lead communities in designing solutions that directly address sustainable production of drinkable water and healthy food. The protocol focuses specifically on food and water as key objective categories. Healthy and affordable fresh food is a must, with local production encouraged. Potable water must be readily available and care taken to protect water supply from contaminants. Moreover, EcoDistricts provides an online platform with hundreds of illustrative indicators so no program has to start from scratch. The platform combined with the non-prescriptive, community-driven nature of implementation means the EcoDistricts protocol is scalable to any locale looking to address their food and water issues.

The problem:

As urban migration continues, cities will be tasked with providing critical resources while dealing with shocks and strains caused by climate change and increased population. Current city design has failed to address these issues; food deserts and lack of potable water plague even the most resource-rich countries like the United States. To solve these problems on a global scale city infrastructure must optimizes food production and water usage while containing low-footprint, sustainable buildings that reduce strains on resources and the environment. Our program tackles both design and construction of cities where food and water scarcity are issue of the past.

Why our solution will solve the problem:

Our #SmartCohort addresses normally over-looked issues of finance and governance. This affects technology roll outs, on boarding of public sector and residents, cybersecurity and privacy; and smart infrastructure investments. It is a cross sector training that uses agile, human centered design, rapid prototyping to tailor to each city’s needs into developing into a "Smart City". The program especially focuses on digital and social equity, digital transformation, innovation economy, local living economy and mitigation of negative externalities of increased automation and urbanism. This leads to building scaleable and equitable solutions to water & food accessibility.

Who recommended you to Solve - or - how did you find Solve?

Carla Mays

Step 3

Step 4

The technologies we employ:

Management & design approaches

Why our solution is unique:

No other training program has combined EcoDistricts and LEED GA/ND into one executive course. Delivering the accreditations in this format presents a comprehensive holistic sustainability training. Our Smart program goes beyond green buildings to include natural resource protection, food production and even the shift to digital infrastructure within cities. Professionals completing the program will understand the incoming technology ushering a new era of smart cities and will have the framework needed to incorporate that into the design of truly smart and sustainable communities.

Why our solution is human-centered:

Each cohort interacts with communities at the human level. Every engagement begins with in-person meetings to understand the issues citizens truly want to address. Once training begins, instructors are flown in to teach material face-to-face and all guides notes and prep materials are given in a physical binder as well as digitally. We understand that each person has their preferred method of learning and we work to accommodate it. Upon completion graduating members will be able to interface with the community combining their training with the wants of a neighborhood to design and build the future they envision for themselves.

How people will access our solution:

Prospective members can access our solution through a website specific to their city. Our solution will be deployed through in-person training, test preparation and examination. Each cohort will have a certified EcoDistricts professional and LEED Faculty member teaching the EcoDistricts and LEED GA/ND portions of the program respectively. The program will be no cost to members and completely funded through partnerships and in-kind donations. Within each community we will leverage community leaders and respected organizations to engage citizens and professionals, introducing them to the program and its benefits.

Technology-Readiness Level:

4-5 (Prototyping)

Our website

https://www.urbsum.com/smartmiami/

Step 5

Step 6