County Presents Information on SCALE Project at White House for SmartAmerica Challenge

County Executive Ike Leggett led the Montgomery County “team” that made a presentation about the County’s SCALE project to senior White House staff and policy advisors and industry executives.

The County shared information on its project entitled “SCALE: Safe Community Alert Network,” a collaborative partnership with the County involving researchers from UC-Irvine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with multiple vendors including IBM, the French-based low-bandwidth provider Sigfox, and Twilio, a cloud communication firm.

Using low-cost advanced sensor and receiving technology, the pilot network project demonstrates deployment of a public sector automated safety alert and community awareness network that protects vulnerable populations. Working with the Montgomery County Housing Partnership (an affordable housing developer in the County), SCALE has deployed a variety of connected sensors in a Rockville apartment building that will detect different environmental distress factors (e.g., smoke, heat, carbon monoxide, hazardous gas), transmit the data to a cloud service, and, if a problem is detected, dispatch emergency response services.

Councilmember Hans Riemer’s discussions with Montgomery County technology leaders led him to ask the County to participate in the SmartAmerica Challenge.

On June 11, the County made a public presentation of the SCALE project at the SmartAmerica Challenge Exposition at the Washington D.C. Convention Center.

• See a synopsis of the “Safe Community Alert Network” pilot project.
• Read the news release.
• See Executive’s remarks.