What's Up with Tech?
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With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Behind the Scenes at Curiosity Lab: Atlanta's Real-World Tech Testing Ground
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At the cutting edge of urban innovation sits Curiosity Lab, a groundbreaking "living laboratory" in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. Brandon Branham, who serves as both Assistant City Manager/CTO for the city and Executive Director/CTO for Curiosity Lab, is pioneering a new model for how municipalities can accelerate technological advancement.
Unlike traditional testing facilities, Curiosity Lab offers something revolutionary: free access to actual city infrastructure – roads, sidewalks, traffic signals, and fiber networks – where companies can test and validate emerging technologies in authentic environments with real human interactions. Since opening in 2019, this nonprofit has attracted 175 companies ranging from startups to global corporations, all seeking to perfect their innovations in a genuine urban setting.
The diversity of projects is remarkable. Underground hyper-logistics delivery systems run beneath the streets. AI-powered streetlights gather usage data on playground equipment. Autonomous vehicles operate without drivers. Smart pedestrian crosswalks automatically detect people in crosswalks without requiring button activation and even provide audio warnings when unsafe vehicles approach. Each innovation addresses real-world challenges facing cities worldwide.
What truly distinguishes Curiosity Lab is its community integration. Rather than isolating experimental technologies, the lab embraces public engagement through school visits, demonstrations at community events, and transparent communication. This approach not only demystifies emerging technologies but also cultivates public trust and acceptance. When people experience an autonomous vehicle firsthand, initial skepticism often transforms into appreciation for its safety advantages.
Looking ahead, Curiosity Lab continues expanding with new facilities focused on public safety technology, AI in manufacturing, and sustainable transportation solutions. Through partnerships with Georgia Tech and other institutions, they're creating bridges between academic research and practical application, ensuring innovations benefit from both theoretical insight and real-world testing.
Want to test your technology in a living laboratory? Reach out through their website – they can typically get companies deployed within just nine days, an unprecedented timeline for public infrastructure access. Discover how Curiosity Lab is shaping the cities of tomorrow by embracing innovation today.
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Hey everyone, really curious today about Curiosity Lab in Atlanta, a fascinating place known as a living lab. I'm going to discover what that means exactly with Brandon Brandon. How are you I'm doing great. Evan. How are you, I'm doing? Well, thanks. It's springtime down in Atlanta and we'll get there in Boston. But in the meantime, really intrigued by the incredible work you're doing at Curiosity Lab together with the city, maybe introduce yourself your personal role and mission on the team and what's the big idea behind Curiosity Lab?
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you again for your time today, evan. So I serve a unique position here, so I get to wear a little bit of two hats. I actually am the Assistant City Manager and Chief Technology Officer for the City of Peachtree Corners, but also the Executive Director and CTO for Curiosity Lab, which is its own 501c3 nonprofit. It was created by the city back in 2016. As we looked at, really, how does public agency engage with the startup community, the corporate innovation arm and the advantages that we as public entities have, which is public infrastructure, right Roads, sidewalks, streetlights, traffic signals how do we take advantage of that to really drive innovation and future-proof cities for years to come with all of this new emerging tech that benefits us in our day-to-day lives? And that's what kind of led us down that road to create Curiosity Lab.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, well, very forward thinking. And what are some of the more interesting or surprising unexpected technologies you're testing at Curiosity Lab?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've been open since September of 2019. Great time to open a living lab, as you mentioned, right before a global pandemic where everything is, you know, out in the physical world. But we've managed through that, just celebrated five years and just onboarded our 175th company that has used curiosity lab to develop, deploy technology in our space. Uh, some of our, you know, we'll start with kind of the outside the box ones. We actually worked with a startup out of texas called pipe dream and they put 18 inch pipe underground for about a mile section of roadway into our innovation center to run underground hyper logistics delivery. So, just, you know, outside the box creativity of how, automation to robotics that tie rebar for large construction projects, and all those things you traditionally don't think of in the smart city space but have a day to day impact on our life. And then, obviously, we're in metro Atlanta, so traffic is always the topic of discussion.
Speaker 1:So traffic is always the topic of discussion and it deployed several companies that are working in this space, using both LiDAR technology to camera radar technology to improve the efficiency of traffic through our cities, brilliant. And how do you identify and, you know, nurture startups as part of the lab? How do you attract them and kind of collaborate within your community?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably the greatest asset that we give for the startup community is access to our infrastructure. So that's our fiber network, our traffic signals, our streets, our light poles, all free of charge, so they can deploy in our facility at no cost, which is a big huge improvement, you know, for them to be able to gain access to $4 to $5 million worth of infrastructure at no cost to really validate their technology.
Speaker 2:So we'll go, obviously the traditional scouting methods going to the conferences, meeting them, connecting with the other companies you know, and then working with our corporate innovators like T-Mobile and UPS and Bosch and Cisco, and finding those supplementary startups that help support their ecosystem as well. So do a lot of you know your traditional trade show, your marketing, anything we can do to spread the word. We are a very global presence, so we have a soft landing pad service for startups that are entering the North American market. So we actually partner with nine countries across the world to help support their entry into North America.
Speaker 2:So, that's how we've been able to get the word out there?
Speaker 1:You certainly have, and it's a very amazing and unusual opportunity. Tell us more. What's in the pipeline? I mean, there's so much on your website at Curity Labs, ptc, you have autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-vehicle communication projects. What are you excited about over the next year or two?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one currently just launched. Really excited about is we just launched Georgia's first commercially available driver-out autonomous vehicle. So you know, thank the Waymo of the world. But we launched with a company called Maymobility out of Michigan and really Georgia's first step into the operation without that driver inside the vehicle. So where autonomy was in 2019 to where autonomy is going to be in 10 years is exciting to be on that journey.
Speaker 2:And then we're under construction right now on a 2.6 acre site focused on handoff from big transit to last mile, whether that's, you know, an autonomous shuttle, whether it's an e-bike, but then bringing in ways for sustainable EV charging. How do we grow our EV network but not require such a demand on the grid? And then create a community gathering spot for the technology park where there's 10,000 people who work, 4,000 people who live. How do we create an environment with them, always keeping that resident and visitor in mind as we look at technology, so excited to see what technologies come into that space, opening that up as kind of an additional extension of our testing facility. And then we are expanding our facility. We're 25,000 square feet currently, expanding another 25,000 square feet and going to bring in two new verticals around public safety technology. How are we helping our public safety teams use technology to help them provide service to cities, and what is the future of AI and manufacturing look like from an operational standpoint? So we're bringing in some pretty serious compute power that you'll see a release here in the next few weeks, which is really excited. When you can locally generate and have that compute power to test new AI models.
Speaker 2:And then we've got probably one I'm really looking forward to is an interesting use case is when we think of EV charging. Right, you have to go to the spot, you have to plug in your car. Sometimes they're taken, the spots aren't available. So we're working with a company to launch later this year called Battery, and they have a mobile 50 kilowatt unit. So you park wherever you want in the parking deck in the parking lot and they actually bring the charger to your vehicle and then you plug it in, go back and then when you get back, you unplug and then it goes off, recharges and goes to the next one. So really interesting use case to see how that's going to interact inside of your parking lot. Yeah, so looking forward to seeing what's coming.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. And of all these emerging and new technologies, how do you think about deploying those in the field? You know in a day-to-day life what's coming out of the lab and into our daily lives down?
Speaker 2:in Atlanta. Our facility from some of the other ones where you talk about testing is because it is a living lab they are getting real exposure to how their product interacts with us as humans on a day-to-day basis because it's not a closed facility.
Speaker 2:You are in a parking lot in a traditional office park, you are on a roadway that is feeding businesses and restaurants and homes, so you really are at that. You know, crawl, walk part of the run portion of your technology development, so you get first-hand exposure, and some of the ones we're starting to see come out are things like really intelligent connected lighting solutions. So we we deployed um a little over 50 lighting heads that have AI built into them and we're using that to figure out how do we know when to bring maintenance into our playground structures. So we built a very nice playground that's getting heavy, heavy usage. It's got nine different stations. How often is it being used? How?
Speaker 2:frequent is it being used. Now we're putting data behind that. I also created a public Wi-Fi network to blanket our downtown using this lighting head, so getting creative with that, I think we'll see kind of that expansion on how we can use that moving forward.
Speaker 2:And obviously we've been talking about smart trash for a while. It's a great use application because cities all over the us send a truck around to lift the lid to see if the trash can is full and go to the next one. So putting sensors inside of that to really redefine how those routes work and then really studying the interaction between vehicle and pedestrians at the intersections right High conflict points when you have a person on a bicycle or you know someone walking across a roadway that's 40, 50 mile an hour and using LIDAR technology to detect the pedestrian in the crosswalk and sometimes we don't always make it through that light that's flashing the hand at us on the side of the road. So you'll see this technology be able to detect that and hold that phase for them to clear the crosswalk before they give the green light to the car, which is really great.
Speaker 2:And then we launched in the public a AI-based pedestrian crosswalk. So if you're out and about in your city and you see those rapid flashing beacons on the side, push the button and what we found? Usually only two out of 10 people actually push the button. So you have the infrastructure there, but they're not using it. So use the system to detect when that pedestrian is in the crosswalk, automatically turns the lights on for them, gives the awareness to the vehicle. But then, now that you have that device, what are the vehicles around you doing If the vehicle's coming at a speed that it shouldn't be? It actually gives an audible alert to the person in the crosswalk that a vehicle is approaching.
Speaker 2:So those are the types of technologies that are improving the safety of how we operate on our streets.
Speaker 1:Love it. So, when it comes to autonomous cars, autonomous technologies in general, lots of misconceptions. First of all, I'd like to clear up one thing how will autonomous cars travel around Georgia when every street is called Peachtree? That will be a huge. I kid, I kid. I'm sure the tech will figure it out. But what are some of the misconceptions about autonomous robots, cars and other planes that are coming, maybe? Or mobility, and how do you address those misconceptions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, right when we see public's reaction to technology, it's usually from a misunderstanding of what the technology does, how it's used, all of the things we think of Terminator and it's in fact. But one thing that's been really unique of us being able to use Curiosity Lab is to get the community input into it. So the autonomous vehicles have all been open to the public to come and get on and experience and interact with since we deployed the first one back in 2019. And usually the misconception is there's no way that thing is safe. But when they get on it and they experience it, they're like oh wait, they're not distracted, they're not talking to the person next to them.
Speaker 2:They're not looking at their phone when they're not supposed to. They don't interact with all those things we as humans do inside the vehicle, and it is actually a very safe ride for them. And they're like, most of the time they get off and like, well, that was pretty uneventful, which is exactly what we want. But it is that first, you know misconception that there's no way computers can be as safe as humans, but in reality they're not speeding right, they're probably more cautious than we are as humans, and so it opens up a good conversation for that. And then, obviously, there's the side that we all we all talk about, right, our robotic systems and AV systems replacing jobs, and so we have good, open conversations about that.
Speaker 2:It's like, no, because if you think of an autonomous, let's use an autonomous bus. Right, the driver of the bus is more than just a driver, right, he's a fare collector, he's a mediator, he's a communicator of what's going on in the community to the passenger. So there's still a need for that person. And how we reskill those tools into a role that interacts with the public in those scenarios, maybe they learn to do tele-assist now, because these autonomous vehicles need a tele-assist system.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's, you know, a reskilling for them to learn how to manually move the robotic systems around facilities and so it's really a discussion of how we change the, the robotic systems around facilities, and so it's really a discussion of how we change the skill, not replace it.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. So Atlanta, great city, but kind of like a microcosm of the US. You got big downtown urban areas and suburban and even rural areas not too far outside of the city. I imagine that sort of influences the projects and programs that you focus on. Why Atlanta, I guess is the question around some of the projects?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely, and just for kind of geographic purposes. So Peachtree Corners, we're about 20 minutes north of Atlanta, we are right on that cusp of being in the urban environment, and so what we see right is all of the jobs go towards the central core, and so traffic is always the number one problem that we all face in suburban urban environments. So huge driver of that technology being deployed here, because one of our roadways is carrying 60 to 70,000 cars of commuter traffic. That's right through the heart of our city. Obviously that affects the east and west movement of your residents.
Speaker 2:So how do you improve that traffic flow, get people to work on time, the efficiency you can save by getting someone to work on time, 10 minutes not wasted in traffic as a huge production output on the other side, but also just studying the safety of it. And then you think of you know, atlanta has become a major sports hub. All right, next year we're going to be hosting nine World Cup games. Yeah, it's got the most games. So how do we use technology to move people efficiently to the transit stations?
Speaker 2:on the roadways, how do we ensure the safety of them? And then what are all of your supplementary assets to your hotels and your parks and all of your cities that are going to be supporting this type of an event and all of your cities that are going to be supporting this type of an event and the technologies that can do crowd management and flow of vehicle and flow of person as they walk along these roadways to experience these events. So we see a lot driven by that. And then, because we sit on the cusp, we also see a lot of technology come in from the agriculture space, agriculture space. So how are we testing water conservation for farmers? And how do cities manage their water systems when you know water is a scarcity and it's a valuable asset, especially for the farming community most expensive bill they pay. So how do we integrate those technologies to help support that? And we get those through the lab as well.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, what an amazing opportunity. How do you think about community engagement in this process? You know balancing all the cool tech and innovation experimentation with. You know public concern, safety, privacy, other you know public feedback.
Speaker 2:Yeah, always a good question and we are. I will say we are very fortunate because of the way the city was really created and developed. We were the first technology park in the state of Georgia ever created, back in the 60s and 70s and so a lot of our community actually grew up working in technology. Their parents worked in technology. A lot of our community actually grew up working in technology. Their parents worked in technology, so they've been open to the idea of the city being used as a living lab. But you can't just you can't just assume that our engagement with these projects are engaging. Taking the autonomous vehicles and the robotic systems to the schools Tomorrow morning I'll be at our elementary school with our robots talking about careers, future of careers, which they go home and tell mom and dad hey, look, how great this is. And then bringing your AVs out to our public concerts and letting people just you know, touch and feel and ask questions about it.
Speaker 2:And then we do a lot of social campaigns across our social media for them to understand what's going on. And then we go a step farther with the work that we do and we became a NIST 171 compliant facility, which is the highest level of data security you can achieve for unclassified data focused purely on PII, so making sure that those standards are in place for any of the technology that's being deployed.
Speaker 1:You know those standards are in place for any of the technology that's being deployed. Amazing. You have an incredible host of partners, sponsors, technology providers from, you know, t-mobile to Siemens, to really who's who. I'm just looking at the list here. How do folks get involved? On that end, if they want to partner or proof of concept, different technologies? What's the process?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we know we can't do this alone as a government, so we are so thankful for our partners that are with us and the investments that they make to make Curiosity Lab better and what it is today. So we are always open to partners that are looking to help the entire ecosystem, whether that's through infrastructure that others can build upon, subject matter expertise. So just reach out to us on our website and then for any company that wants to deploy and test and bring their technology to Curiosity Lab, we have a simple onboarding process that we go through. Just check your Ts and Cs and we'll get you out. Usually, we can get you deployed in about nine days from submitting that application Wow that's wild.
Speaker 1:I've never heard of that before. It's unprecedented, Wow, amazing. And as far as you know, tech, education, academia, you have some amazing institutions right on your doorstep, Of course, Georgia Tech infamous. How do you work with academia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, very important part of this because you need the research side, you need the students thinking about what's coming down the future.
Speaker 1:So we work closely with Georgia Tech in several ways.
Speaker 2:We are a research site for their School of Civil Engineering and Computer Science and then actually on April 21st we will be launching a new program established by Georgia Tech called the Atrium and it's under their College of Lifelong Learning, the new college they just created to support professional education, workforce development, online learners, and will be their first campus outside of our innovation center to support that program. And then obviously, we will submit on grants with universities to do specific research in our facility. And then we work with places like Kennesaw State and one of their professors. We actually give capstone projects to the classes to build new applications.
Speaker 2:So we just closed one on understanding movement around a roundabout, because roundabouts in the US build a challenge for us as drivers. So we let them have some data around it and build some safety features. And what are we learning? How are people using that? What's the safety features of a roundabout? Because they do move traffic very efficiently. We just have to learn how to use them. So really going out and just getting the universities to understand we are here, our data is available for them to use to build future applications, because in the end we want this to scale out of Curiosity Lab. We want this to be able to help cities across the US to better provide services for our residents.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, you're certainly leading the charge. What are you looking forward to over the next weeks and months? What's in your pipeline?
Speaker 2:Yes, we have Smart City Expo coming up here next week, so excited just to continue to learn from other cities. And then we are kicking off two new partnerships one with a company called BizTech, where we're actually going to create a metaverse of our downtown and use that from a training perspective for incident response. So how do you train people when you've got 3000 people for a public concert and there's an incident? You know, just someone needs medical care. How do you navigate that? So we're going to create that in the virtual world. And then kicking off a partnership with what we call Jakarta and Enfold to build a digital twin that really gets out of the GIS department and into your planning services, into your public works and using those 3D point clouds and digital format of your city to help maintain and build operations. You have a new mixed use development that's approved. What's the impact of that traffic and change in your environment? Now you can build that in the digital world.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, you must feel like a kid in a candy store. As a tech geek yes, no disrespect there, but well done. Thanks so much for joining us, brandon, and look forward to all the news and updates.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Evan and thanks everyone listening and watching and, of course, sharing. Take care.