Honeywell Building Technologies and Accelerator for America announced the launch of the Honeywell Smart City Accelerator Program to help cities strategically plan their futures and build capacity to fund transformational initiatives. Accelerator for America is a non-profit organization led by an Advisory Council of 
mayors, labor and business leaders, and urban and economic development experts that finds and develops solutions to economic insecurity and shares them with cities to create national change from the ground up. Honeywell is engaging with five U.S. cities to provide in-kind support to accelerate progress on their smart city strategic planning. The cities are Cleveland, Louisville, Ky., Kansas City, Mo., San Diego, and Waterloo, Iowa.
Through the Smart City Accelerator, each city will receive technical support from Honeywell and Accelerator to develop a Smart City Strategic Plan. Each strategic plan will align key stakeholders, define priorities, and identify high-impact and inclusive initiatives that advance residents' quality of life in areas such as climate resiliency, public safety, operational efficiency, and improved service delivery. Each city will also receive support in applying for federal grants to support the implementation of identified projects.
Working closely with city stakeholders, Honeywell will create a four-track Smart City Strategic Plan for each city that encompasses:
- Track 1 – Smart City Vision: Identifies priorities and desired outcomes from a focused set of key stakeholders. It will include resiliency focused goals such as reducing operational costs, enhancing resident engagement, strengthening community resiliency, improving public safety, and bridging the equity gap.
- Track 2 – Operational Framework: Serves as a roadmap for managing and supporting smart city projects. It will help cities integrate new capabilities into current systems and processes, define associated KPIs and serve as an essential element for grant applications.
- Track 3 – Project Definition: Defines high-impact projects and potential business models that can be implemented to achieve the goals defined in Track 1, including program statements, recommended solutions, high level solution requirements, and expected benefits.
- Track 4 – Smart City Project Plan: Identifies tasks and processes to help guide cities through project implementation as well as define overall smart cities governance structures.
The Honeywell City Suite Software, an artificial intelligence enabled IoT platform, integrates data from critical city infrastructure systems such as traffic, streetlights, environment, emergency services, public safety and security, and utilities into a single, unified view. The open architecture of the ready now solution helps cities connect systems and capabilities to bridge departmental silos and allow budgets to stretch further and create safer, more resilient communities. The Honeywell City Suite is deployed in 75 cities worldwide, helping to improve more than 100 million lives, and can be scaled by communities to gauge energy consumption across city-owned facilities and utilities.