For the first time in human history, the majority of people live in urban areas. Cities consume 75 percent of the world’s energy and are responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Cisco envisions a future where the intelligent use of networking architectures can transform society not only by boosting productivity and spurring economic growth, but also by supporting environmental sustainability and enhancing the quality of life in urban environments.

Connected Urban Development

In support of the Clinton Global Initiative, Cisco has launched Connected Urban Development, an initiative that embeds advanced information communication technology in urban infrastructure and management systems. This initiative has the potential to reduce global warming by creating smarter, more environmentally friendly cities. At the same time, it has the potential to increase social and economic value. Pilot programs began in FY07, and we expect the full program to roll out in FY08. We estimate the total value of our investment in this initiative to be $15 million over five years.

Cisco is working with innovation-minded cities to improve their energy efficiency and reduce emissions. Our three pilot cities—Amsterdam, San Francisco, and Seoul— share characteristics that we consider important to the success of the trial programs:

• Visionary leadership
• Significant problems with traffic and congestion
• Commitment to environmental sustainability
• Next-generation broadband fiber or wireless infrastructure planned or implemented
• Status as a globally recognized communications hub

Cisco has also chosen Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Mobile Experience Lab as our global research and academic partner for the Connected Urban Development initiative. A team from the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group is also collaborating with government and scientific leaders to create a vision for the cities of the future.

We intend to showcase these cities as models for intelligent urban communications, and then create a replicable framework that can be adopted by other cities worldwide. Additional pilot cities are currently under consideration. We plan to announce the final group of participants in December 2007.

As shown in the model above, each Connected Urban Development activity (vertical columns) starts with traditional building and civil infrastructure and then applies intelligent networking services and infrastructure. To deploy the urban communications infrastructure, we intend to implement technologies such as IP networking, global positioning systems (GPSs), and radio frequency identification (RFID).

We believe that the movement of vehicles on streets and roads can be managed just as efficiently as the movement of traffic on the Internet. We are targeting vehicle-caused air pollution in each of the pilot cities by looking at transportation demands and determining the exact sources of the pollution. Cisco will engage local and global organizations to get feedback and help ensure that results are carefully and objectively quantified, so the solutions that are developed and the best practices that are learned during the pilots can be implemented in other cities.