The City of Orlando is considered an early adopter of technology and sustainability innovations and has set an ambitious goal of integrating smart city technologies to become one of America’s new Future-Ready cities. A future-ready city is one that uses stakeholder engagement, innovation, and technology to cultivate a thriving and enduring community. The Orlando Future-Ready initiative required collaboration and consensus about how the city should prioritize programs and efforts to become a center of innovation, technological advancement, and resilience.
As the prime consultant for Future-Ready, VHB partnered with the city to engage the community, including internal city and industry experts, the business community and academia to create the roadmap for the Plan. It was vital that the community engagement process was inclusive, to fully identify current and future challenges along with possible solutions. Our team collected input from stakeholder discussions, focus-area roundtables, public workshops, and an online virtual platform for resident feedback.
This process identified and prioritized short-term strategies that are important to the residents of Orlando, and the VHB team prepared conceptual plans, life cycle assessments, and business models to implement these strategies. Additional mid- to long-term strategies are included and will evolve as technology and innovation progress. The Plan and its proposed actions are also organized by pillar focus areas that categorize some of the major services that the City of Orlando already provides its citizens: Connectivity, Energy, Health and Safety, Built Environment, Mobility, Water, and Materials.
Read the Orlando Future-Ready Master Plan.
