Element Blue, an IBM Premier Partner and leading provider of IBM Smarter Planet solutions, has been selected to develop the Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) platform for Smarter Sustainable Dubuque, a unique public/private partnership between IBM Research and the City of Dubuque that seeks to make Dubuque one of the first “smarter” sustainable cities in the U.S., through meeting the environmental, economic and social equity needs of its residents. Until recently, these efforts have focused on water, electricity, discards and transportation.

Now, the endeavor is expanding to include citizen health and wellness through the pilot of an aggregate “CityView” Community Engagement Platform (CEP), a joint effort of IBM Research and the University of Iowa College of Public Health, which is developed, hosted, and supported by IBM Research in the IBM cloud environment. Element Blue will provide a separate hosted IOC for Dubuque to interact with the CEP and create a single view of updates and integration into the system.

“The Intelligent Operations Center addresses one of the long-term goals for Dubuque’s on-going sustainability research with IBM – facilitating a common platform for the development, conduct, reporting, delivery and evaluation of Smarter Sustainable Dubuque research efforts across the various “silos” of activity such as water, electricity, travel, discards and wellness,” said Michael C. Van Milligen, Dubuque City Manager.

Through the use of mobility and individual engagement/data collection mobile applications, between 75 and 200 community volunteers will download the CityView apps to their Android smart phones and be able to track their activities and compare them with their goals and with the results the aggregate group of volunteers.

“This interaction is expected to help participants assess the effectiveness of their chosen actions/activities towards maintaining and improving their wellness,” said Van Milligen. “The results of the pilot will be used by the City, IBM Research and the University of Iowa College of Public Health to determine the extent to which these new technologies can improve health and wellness results, and if a larger research project would be feasible. The hosting and metric analysis for the pilot will be available through the IBM Intelligent Operations Center [delivered by Element Blue].”

“Smarter Sustainable Dubuque has provided residents with the information and tools they need to make smarter choices about resource consumption and achieving their personal goals,” said Van Milligen. “The initiative has engaged Dubuque residents and businesses who, through advanced technology, have been able to better manage their use of resources like water and electricity. Now there is an opportunity to expand the initiative to encompass health and wellness, which is perhaps one of the most critical keys to a community’s long term sustainability. It is a rare approach to life quality where no one in the community is excluded . . . everyone who wants to do so, can participate and contribute. That is what is unique in Dubuque’s ability to continue to innovate and transform.“