100 Resilient Cities - Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation - and Resilient Solutions 21 Announce Partnership to Bring Next Generation Urban Analytics to Cities
NEW YORK, NY (PRWEB) November 05, 2015 -- 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) – is today announcing a partnership with Resilient Solutions 21 (RS21). RS21 will offer a critical resilience-building capability, the Resilience Spectrum, to 100RC’s member cities. The Resilience Spectrum is a collaborative, human-driven technology that combines layers of physical, social, economic and environmental data sets with design thinking to help cities create solutions with multiple benefits by visualizing complex data on a city-level scale. The capability represents the latest thinking in urban analytics and will be available to members of 100RC’s network as the cities design and implement their comprehensive Resilience Strategies.
RS21 joins a prestigious group of other “Platform Partners” that have committed to helping cities around the world prepare for, withstand, and bounce back from the ‘shocks’ – catastrophic events like hurricanes, fires, and floods – and ‘stresses’ – slow-moving disasters like water shortages, homelessness, and unemployment, which are increasingly part of 21st century life. The Platform Partners are a vital component of 100RC’s efforts, both providing cities with tools they need to build resilience and influencing the market as other resilience tools are developed. Current Platform Partners represent a wide array of private sector, public sector, NGO and academic community leaders.
“We’re thrilled to join the global 100RC platform,” said Charles Rath, CEO of RS21. “100 Resilient Cities has kick started a very successful movement to help cities across the world collaborate to solve their toughest challenges – everything from preparing for the next big flood to creating social structures that drive innovation and revitalize economies. We’re doing very cool things at RS21 with layers of big data that we believe will help progressive, forward-looking cities thrive.”
The company has already started providing its next generation urban analytics to the City of El Paso. According to El Paso Chief Resilience Officer Nicole Ferrini, “By activating the agency of mapping, the City of El Paso has been able to capture, identify and visualize tangible solutions to the very real challenges cities face every day. The skillset and tools that RS21 brings to the table have unlocked our capacity for innovation, catapulting our work to the next level while consistently helping us stay grounded in solid, validated data; assuring the development of a strong, sustainable resilience strategy.”
“In an increasingly complex and challenging world, cities need partnerships with innovative companies like Resilient Solutions 21 to withstand the shocks and stresses of the 21st century,” said Michael Berkowitz, President of 100 Resilient Cities. “By providing the Resilience Spectrum to our network of cities, Resilient Solutions 21 is leading by example, and is helping to build a global resilience movement.”
“Cities have access to data sets that were impossible to collect just a few years ago. And while big data is the future of urban analytics, it’s meaningless without the capacity to organize, layer and visualize it in a way that leads to solutions with measurable benefits,” said Rath. “Our technology can be used to pinpoint answers to citywide questions like, ‘what is the best mix of solutions to mitigate the maximum amount of heat island effect?’ or ‘where should structures be located to avoid damage from significant flooding events?’ However, by layering data sets, we can also design solutions that help cities achieve multiple benefits, such as mitigating heat island effect in ways that provide underserved children access to new playgrounds or help residents save money by reducing their energy consumption.”
100RC is dedicated to helping cities become more resilient to the shocks and stresses that are a growing part of the 21st century. Each city in the 100RC network receives four concrete types of support:
• Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city’s resilience efforts;
• Technical support for development of a robust Resilience Strategy;
• Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public, academic, and NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and
• Membership in a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other.
Platform Partners are dedicated to providing 100RC network cities with solutions that integrate big data, analytics, technology, resilience land use planning, infrastructure design, and new financing and insuring products. Other 100RC Platform Partners include Microsoft, Swiss Re, Palantir, the World Bank, MWH Global, Veolia, Ushahidi, and Deutsche Bank.
About Resilient Solutions 21
Resilient Solutions 21 (RS21) is a global consultancy created to help neighborhoods, buildings, businesses, cities and systems flourish in today’s world. We design imaginative solutions to help our customers prepare for disasters and solve chronic issues affecting their capacity to adapt to changing conditions. We blend a powerful analytic capability with a network of world-class experts to provide game changing results that ensure a stronger future.
RS21 provides services in risk and resilience assessment, urban analytics, infrastructure resilience, resilient building design, community resilience strategy, environmental planning and economic development. For more information, visit: http://www.resilientsolutions21.com.
About 100 Resilient Cities—Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation
100 Resilient Cities - Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) helps cities around the world become more resilient to social, economic, and physical challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century. 100RC provides this assistance through: funding for a Chief Resilience Officer in each of our cities who will lead the resilience efforts; resources for drafting a Resilience Strategy; access to private sector, public sector, academic, and NGO resilience tools; and membership in a global network of peer cities to share best practices and challenges. 100RC currently has 67 member cities. For more information, visit: http://www.100ResilientCities.org.
100RC recently launched the third and final round of the 100 Resilient Cities challenge, where cities can apply to become part of the final cohort of cities in the global network of 100 cities. For application information, visit: http://www.100ResilientCities.org/challenge.
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Charles Rath, Resilient Solutions 21, http://www.resilientsolutions21.com, +1 505-314-2141, [email protected]
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