To kick off the start of Smart Cities Week, the White House has announced that it is expanding its Smart Cities initiative, by adding over $80 million dollars in new federal investments and doubling the number of participating communities (to over 70 in total).

The Community Community Consortium (CCC) held a Smart Cities panel and discussion at the Computing Research Symposium: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs. You can see the full discussion here.

Some highlights from the White House Fact Sheet are below:

Today, to kick off Smart Cities Week, the Administration is expanding this initiative, with over $80 million in new Federal investments and a doubling of the number of participating cities and communities, exceeding 70 in total. These new investments and collaborations will help cities of all sizes, including in the following key areas:

• Climate: The Administration is announcing nearly $15 million in new funding and two new coalitions to help cities and communities tackle energy and climate challenges.
• Transportation: The Administration is announcing more than $15 million in new grants and planned funding to evolve the future of urban transportation. 
• Public safety: The Administration is announcing more than $10 million in new grants and planned funding for public safety, resilience, and disaster response. 
• Transforming city services: MetroLab Network is launching a new effort to help cities adopt promising innovations in social programs.

Below are some examples of support from the various agencies:

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced over $60 million in new smart cities-related grants in FY16 and planned new investments in FY17.
  • The lead PI on one of these FY16 smart cities-related grants is Charlie Catlett, Argonne National Laboratory and the Computation Institute. Catlett presented his work on The Array of Things and Open Data at the CCC Computing Research Symposium during the Opportunities in Urban Environments (Smart Cities) panel.
• The Department of Energy (DOE) announced new coalitions to build cleaner, smarter communities, and more than $15 million in new and planned funding to support smart, energy-efficient urban transportation systems and to unlock distributed clean energy sources.
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is continuing to expand the smart cities movement and support technical progress in the Internet of Things.

See the full fact sheet for more information.