Microsoft Partners With 100 Resilient Cities On Civic Cyber-Security Strategies

Resilient_Cities

 

Last week, Microsoft announced a partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities where we have joined as one of their Platform Partners. This is particularly relevant here in the Bay Area because San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley are all part of 100RC’s first cohort of 32 cities from across the world that joined the program in 2013. Microsoft’s role is to help cities build cybersecurity to combat online threats. As cities—and the rest of society—integrate technology more and more into their foundation, cybersecurity will soon be viewed as mission critical for cities just like public safety is today.

A trustworthy digital infrastructure is critical to a city’s resilience both in times of acute shocks like after an earthquake or flood, but also for responding to long term stress such as climate change and traffic gridlock. “According to the Red Cross’ World Disasters Report, during emergencies information is becoming as vital as food and shelter,” says Tony Surma, CTO and Senior Director for Microsoft Disaster Response. “Relief workers rely on up-to-date information to coordinate and prioritize the delivery scarce resources and without reliable networks, coordination among agencies becomes much more difficult.”

More and more governments are deploying Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to help their cities improve efficiency and mitigate the long term impacts of environmental changes. According to Gartner, there will be over 26 billion connected IoT devices in the next 5 years. While this will be a boon to cities allowing them to do everything from optimizing energy consumption in buildings to evolving their aging infrastructure it also opens up more systems to potential cyber-attacks.

Microsoft will work with 100RC to help cities develop a cybersecurity strategy as part of their resilience programs. By bringing in experts to lead workshops we hope to help cities prioritize their needs and facilitate knowledge exchanges at 100RC-organized city workshops.