Powering Cities with Every Step: Japan’s Smart Energy Innovation ⚡🚶♂️
What if your daily walk could help power your city? In Japan, it already does. Train stations, sidewalks, and bridges are being fitted with piezoelectric sensors—materials that generate electricity from movement.
🔹 How It Works – Every footstep applies pressure, creating a tiny electric charge. Multiply that by thousands of daily commuters, and it’s enough to power LED screens, lights, and signage.
🔹 Real-World Impact – Tokyo train stations track how much energy passengers generate, turning commutes into a live science experiment. Bridges capture vibrations from cars to power streetlights.
🔹 The Big Picture – While this won’t replace traditional energy sources, it’s a step toward greener, self-sustaining infrastructure.
💡 Could this technology be scaled for more cities? Where else could we harvest untapped energy? Let’s discuss! 👇
#Innovation#SustainableEnergy#SmartCities#GreenTech#FutureInfrastructure
Ever Seen a City Block Walk?
Moving one building is a challenge. But moving an entire block of historic buildings on a fleet of robotic "legs"? That's a glimpse into the future of engineering.
In Shanghai, a critical urban development project required building a new subterranean complex, but a block of historic Shikumen buildings stood in the way. The solution wasn't demolition, but a breathtaking feat of structural relocation.
Here’s how they did it:
The "Army": An army of 432 coordinated crawler robots lifted the entire block.
The "Walk": The buildings were "walked" to their new home at a precise 10 meters per day.
The "Guardian": Real-time structural monitoring acted as a guardian, ensuring perfect load distribution and zero damage to the historic facades.
This is more than just a mega-project; it's a new benchmark for what's possible, proving we can innovate for the future without demolishing the past.
Is this robotic, minimally-invasive approach the future for complex urban renewal? Drop your thoughts below!
🎥 South China Morning Post (YT)
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In countries like the Netherlands, trash doesn’t just disappear — it goes underground. How is it organized in your city?
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht use underground waste containers and smart collection systems where bins are connected to large subterranean units, keeping streets visually clean, reducing odour, and cutting unnecessary truck movements.
But this isn’t just a Dutch story. It’s a global shift powered by technology.
📊 How leading cities are transforming waste management:
🇳🇱 Netherlands
• Underground containers reduce surface bin clutter by up to 70–80% in dense neighbourhoods
• IoT sensors monitor fill levels, enabling 30–40% fewer collection trips
🇰🇷 Songdo, South Korea
• Fully pneumatic waste system
• Trash travels through underground vacuum tubes at 70 km/h
• Eliminated traditional garbage trucks in residential zones
• Reduced waste handling costs by up to 50%
🇳🇴 Bergen, Norway
• Pneumatic underground network beneath historic districts
• Cut CO₂ emissions from waste collection vehicles by up to 35%
• Reduced noise pollution in heritage zones
🇸🇬 Singapore
• Smart bins + centralised waste chutes in HDBs
• Waste-to-energy plants process over 90% of Singapore’s waste, shrinking landfill dependency
• Semakau Landfill projected lifespan extended from 2045 to beyond 2035 through tech & efficiency gains
🚀 Technology making this possible:
• IoT sensors for real-time bin monitoring
• AI-powered route optimisation reducing fuel use
• Pneumatic vacuum tube networks
• Automated robotics for waste sorting
• Waste-to-energy conversion systems
✅ The impact:
• Cleaner cities
• Fewer pests and odours
• Reduced emissions
• Lower operating costs
• Better citizen experience
The future of urban living isn’t just about shiny skyscrapers — it’s about invisible infrastructure working intelligently beneath our feet.
Smart cities aren’t just built.
They’re engineered to stay clean.
#SmartCities#UrbanInnovation#Sustainability#CircularEconomy#CleanTech
Rain gardens are nature-based solutions to manage stormwater, enhance biodiversity and public space
A rain garden is a shallow, vegetated depression designed to capture and absorb rainwater runoff from impervious surfaces like roofs, roads, and pavements.
Filled with native plants, engineered soil, and gravel layers, rain gardens slow down and filter water through the ground, reducing pressure on urban drainage systems and improving water quality.
These systems support urban resilience by mitigating flood risks, recharging groundwater, and creating habitats for pollinators and other species.
Rain gardens also cool the microclimate, absorb pollutants, and offer visually attractive green pockets in dense urban settings.
They are commonly integrated into residential areas, streetscapes, and public parks as part of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS).
#RainGarden#GreenInfrastructure#StormwaterManagement#UrbanNature#SustainableLandscapes#NatureBasedSolutions#ClimateResilience#Biodiversity#LandscapeArchitecture
Wrapped up my latest visit to New York City, and it reaffirmed a vital truth: the iconic skyline, while breathtaking, also represents a significant carbon challenge. As buildings contribute over two-thirds of NYC's emissions, their transformation is crucial to achieving the ambitious 2050 goal of an 80% reduction.
Digital technologies offer a feasible and cost-effective solution. Consider these numbers:
Digital building management alone can achieve 42% emission reduction in offices, with payback periods of less than three years. Electrification and microgrids with renewable energy sources can further reduce emissions by 28%.
The combined impact? 70% reduction in operational carbon emissions. Achievable today, with a quick return on investment.
Now, imagine the impact at scale: New York City's iconic skyline, gleaming with clean energy. Let's make it a reality.
Last month, a drone from Skyfire | AI was credited with saving a police officer’s life after a dramatic 2 a.m. traffic stop. Many statistics show that AI impacts billions of lives, but sometimes a story still hits me emotionally. Let me share what happened.
Skyfire AI, an AI Fund portfolio company led by CEO Don Mathis, operates a public safety program in which drones function as first responders to 911 calls. Particularly when a police department is personnel-constrained, drones can save officers’ time while enhancing their situational awareness. For example, many burglar alarms are false alarms, maybe set off by moisture or an animal. Rather than sending a patrol officer to drive over to discover this, a drone can get there faster and determine if an officer is required at all. If the alarm is real, the drone can help officers understand the situation, the locations of any perpetrators, and how best to respond.
In January, a Skyfire AI drone was returning to base after responding to a false alarm when the police dispatcher asked us to reroute it to help locate a patrol officer. The officer had radioed a few minutes earlier that he had pulled over a suspicious vehicle and had not been heard from since. The officer had stopped where two major highways intersect in a complex cloverleaf, and dispatch was unsure exactly where they were located.
From the air, the drone rapidly located the officer and the driver of the vehicle he had pulled over, who it turned out had escaped from a local detention facility. Neither would have been visible from the road — they were fighting in a drainage ditch below the highway. Because of the complexity of the cloverleaf’s geometry, the watch officer (who coordinates police activities for the shift) later estimated it would have taken 5-7 minutes for an officer in a patrol car to find them.
From the aerial footage, it appeared that the officer still had his radio, but was losing the fight and unable to reach it to call for help. Further, it looked like the assailant might gain control of his service weapon and use it against him. This was a dire and dangerous situation.
Fortunately, because the drone had pinpointed the location of the officer and his assailant, dispatch was able to direct additional units to assist. The first arrived not in 5-7 minutes but in 45 seconds. Four more units arrived within minutes.
The officers were able to take control of the situation and apprehend the driver, resulting in an arrest and, more important, a safe outcome for the officer. Subsequently, the watch officer said we’d probably saved the officer’s life.
[Reach length limit; full text: https://lnkd.in/g3QdKp5Q ]
☁️ Clouds block satellites. Floods don’t care.
Here’s how foundation models are being adapted to see through the storm.
During extreme weather events like floods, clouds often block optical satellites from capturing usable data. And that's exactly when timely insight matters most.
Originally shared by Heather Couture, PhD, this study tackled this head-on. It adapted the Prithvi foundation model, originally trained on optical imagery, by incorporating Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to detect floods across the UK and Ireland.
✅ SAR can “see” through clouds
✅ Fine-tuning the model with SAR bands boosted flood segmentation accuracy from 0.58 to 0.79
✅ Even small amounts of local data were enough to adapt the model to new regions
This research shows that Earth Observation Foundation Models can be effectively adapted for disaster response, even in data scarce areas and how AI can be useful for real world problems.
🌎 I'm Matt and I talk about modern GIS, AI, and how geospatial is changing.
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EVP, Energy Management & Executive Committee Member @ Schneider Electric | Co-Chair, Bloomberg Energy Tech Coalition | Your Energy Technology Partner: Electrifying & Digitalizing the New Energy Landscape
The energy transition is more than just a shift to renewables; it’s a total reinvention of our infrastructure, with electricity distribution networks acting as vital enablers of this change. Electricity is the best vector for decarbonization, and the world increasingly relies on it. Effectively these networks expand, must be capable of supporting renewable integration, but they must also be optimized for digital innovation, efficiency, and sustainability. This is where Electricity 4.0 plays a transformational role.
The concept of Electricity 4.0 assumes massive electrification in tandem with deployment of digital intelligence within electric systems, turning traditional distribution networks into smart, responsive systems. These networks don’t just distribute power—they actively manage, monitor, and adapt in real-time, creating an energy ecosystem that is reliable, efficient, and more sustainable.
One compelling example of making progress is the adoption of SF6-free medium-voltage (MV) switchgear. In our case it’s AirSeT. Let me recap how it fits into the bigger picture:
1. Integrating renewables at scale: Distributed renewables need robust networks to balance power flows dynamically and manage fluctuating demands. AirSeT is equipped with CompoDrive, 10x stronger than its predecessor to accommodate massively increasing switching requirements.
2. Optimizing energy management through digitalization: By embedding IoT and AI, we can achieve real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance, minimizing losses and boosting efficiency. Switchgear needs powerful digital capabilities to gather intelligence from the field.
3. Sustainable infrastructure with sustainable MV solutions: SF6-free minimizes CO2e footprints while ensuring network reliability. Each kilogram avoided means 24,300 kg of CO2e less in the networks. Operational life extended by up to 30% and no toxic byproducts of breaking support circularity.
The journey toward a low-carbon economy demands more than just clean power generation; it requires revolutionary approaches to how energy is managed, distributed, and optimized. Electric distribution networks aren’t just supporting the transition—they’re driving it, like Drakenstein Municipality in South Africa.
Let’s continue to lead this transformation, ensuring every step forward brings us closer to a resilient, sustainable energy future.
Read this eBook to discover how SF6-free and digital solutions enable decarbonization and efficiency: https://lnkd.in/dGThND2Q#SF6Free#LifeIsOn#AirSeT
Translating climate science for implementation 🐝| Urban planner | Public policy & sustainability strategist | Global campaigns & research advisory | LinkedIn Top Green Voice | TEDx Fellow | United Nations Fellow
Think climate resilience is just about solar panels, EVs, and tree-planting? Think again🤔
What if the key to climate-proofing our cities isn’t above ground—but below?
Cities are running out of space—and the usual solutions aren’t cutting it.
❌ Floods, heatwaves, congestion—above ground, we’re struggling.
✅ But underground? That’s where the real climate hacks are happening.
From Helsinki to Singapore, cities are proving that resilience isn’t about going higher—it’s about going deeper.
A few game-changing underground space solutions from around the world:
📍 Kuala Lumpur’s SMART Tunnel → A highway and a flood control system? Genius.
📍 Tokyo’s underground flood reservoirs → Holding millions of litres of water like a real-life superhero.
📍 Paris’ underground gardens → Cooling the city while adding a splash of green where space is tight.
These examples also raise the question: why aren’t we tapping into the underground space more?
As the initiator of All Bits Count and a Board Member at ITACUS - the ITA Committee on Underground Space, I recently collaborated with CityChangers.org and Urban Future to deep-dive into this game-changing approach.
The bottom line? If we keep treating underground space as an afterthought, we’re missing out on one of the most powerful, scalable climate solutions out there.
💭 What do you think? Should cities be going deeper to fight the climate crisis? Drop your thoughts below! 👇🏽
📖 Read the article with CityChangers.org: https://lnkd.in/guwFMC4d#UrbanPlanning#ClimateAction#Sustainability#WomenInScience#Publications