Digital District

The Recovery Will Happen in Public Spaces

iNeighborhoods, Digital District is a location-based[1] deployment of technology and practices.  It enables community, and planning, for a more inclusive and connected future.   Each District has its own set of interactive touchpoints and features which are customized through our community engagement and ecosystem planning processes to match the specific needs of an area. Moreover, a Digital District is an inclusive, economic development and education solution, that creates opportunity and community revenue flows for students, residents, and businesses alike. Finally, Digital Districts are revenue-positive from the get-go.  They can be built on top of existing Telco-provided infrastructure.

[1] Community locations identified by GPS coordinates are known as geozones.

Main Street USA

By the 1950’s and 60’s, the country was reaching the end of a long period of sustained industrial growth. It was the heyday of big-ticket manufacturing and infrastructure projects which provided a great number of jobs in the communication, transportation, utility, and public works industries.

But at the end of the workday, everybody returned to Main Street. This is the place where friends gathered and business took place, where people exchanged ideas and inspiration. Neighbors communicated in person, on paper, or by telephone, and they connected to the larger world through radio or TV. People exchanged ideas and learned how to better work together through face-to-face encounters.

The Digital District

In today’s digital economy, technology professionals work with software and data to create new opportunities every day. By providing neighborhood students, residents, and businesses with easy access to high-speed data and Smart technologies, cultural and recreational amenities and living and transportation options, the Digital District will connect our past industrial economy to our future socio-economic potential. The Digital District provides a technology boost to the traditional face-to-face encounters, which both amplifies and accelerates the accumulation of working-together-better knowhow.   This enables our community’s businesses and residents to learn to produce more innovative products and services.  It is this socio-economic boost that brings about better-paying jobs and more affluence for our residents.   What’s more, these meetups often are unplanned and occur by serendipity.

Moreover, the recent pandemic spawned a massive surge in digital communication – mostly with video streaming services. Business, social events, and general conversation were all made available for people to experience virtually, and in many ways, this was a great paradigm shift towards easier communication.

As we begin to move out of the pandemic, however, we are starting to see rollbacks of less-essential virtual experiences, such as those provided by concerts, museums, and other venues. This greatly affects disabled people, especially those who are unable to leave the house. In parallel, local businesses who are just getting back to standard operations are searching for ways to draw community members back out into public spaces.

Welcome to your Digital District: the all-inclusive neighborhood where students, residents, businesses, public and private sector opportunities meet. Check out: The Recovery Will Happen in Public Spaces

Digital District Basic Features

The Digital District brings technology to life in your community by bringing together components into an enhanced digital experience. These components could be mobile phones, physical sensors, software APIs (such as location tracking, public health, public safety, retail, augmented reality, renewable energy, ridesharing, etc.) and more. Once connected, these components can function in a brand-new way that exceeds the sum of the parts, a new digital experience.  What’s more, this experience is focused on people who live or work in the District’s geozone.

Your Digital District App will come equipped with the following functionalities. Other features can be added per our community engagement process, or by further engagement with other local organizations.

  • Geozone Capabilities
    • Blossom will create a geozone within your District that will serve as a gateway to App functionalities. Said differently, the full Digital District App experience will only be available to users who are physically inside of the District’s geozone.
    • The Digital District App will have full control over what features are available both inside and outside of your Districts geozone. While users who are inside the District can be given a privileged digital experience, users outside can still be directed to information sources and opportunities for retail transactions.
  • Profile Creation and Management
    • Digital District has two (2) user profile levels: Individual and Business.
    • Users have full control over their data and with whom they share it.
    • Users can fully manage all subscriptions and activities tied to their profile.
  • Engagement Management Tools
    • Business, residents, entrepreneurs, and students can create location-based interactions, advertisements, and informational content using our engagement management environment.
    • iNeighborhoods will use this environment to create custom features for your Digital District and will expand our library of user tools as we create additional features.
  • Data Reporting and District Analytics
    • iNeighborhoods will offer an in-depth look at the performance of your Digital District. We utilize advanced analytical methods to evaluate all services provided and can customize reports to suit the needs of your Digital District.

Inclusive Digital District Economic Development Services

To accelerate the development of a Digital District, and to identify and manage inclusive stakeholder opportunity and revenue flows from day one, iNeighborhoods offers a variety of Ecosystem Planning Services, Workshops, Digital Design and Mapping services.

  1. Ecosystem Planning Services For education, entrepreneurship, inclusion, economic development and more. By assessing the local ecosystem surrounding a Digital District, stakeholders can confidently plan for inclusive opportunity and community revenue flows.
  2. Workshops Our Readiness Assessment or Playbook workshop brings stakeholders and interdisciplinary groups into a daylong session to develop the Story, the long-term strategy, short term tactics, Plays, quick wins and community champions to move the Digital District forward. These workshops also engender greater public support for the Digital District development.
  3. Digital Design and Mapping Services Our mapping services determine GIS locations for all wired and wireless internet connections including upload and download speeds, delay, jitter, and other meta data fields. Useable with all networks; accelerates the adoption of inclusive 5G or CBRS networks.

Demonstrations and Current Work
  • Digital District User Interface The Digital District platform brings technology to life in communities by connecting new and existing infrastructure in a single platform. In iNeighborhoods’ Digital District, Blossom brings together a variety of components such as other software, sensors and other hardware, and even static infrastructure, like buildings. Each of these components, or nodes, has an interactive place in our interface. This interactivity is a powerful combination of features centered on providing users a unique digital experience at physical locations. Part of this experience is a smart navigation system that gives an overview of the various interactions available around the District, and can learn users’ preferences to give suggestions, if desired. Our navigation system is key in both guiding users around the District’s geozone and educating them about the new possibilities our technology can offer.
  • Digital District Spotlight Camera System Spotlight provides communities a wholly new way to highlight local experiences. Our IP streaming services give everyone from individuals to event promoters and businesses the tools to easily connect and manage live streams through our platform. Digital District users can access these streams to find information, engage in live events, or even to simply see what’s happening. Streamed events can be either free or ticketed giving businesses a completely new way of engaging with patrons.

The Plainfield IIoT Industrial Corridor Community revitalization at its best.  Convert the original Plainfield Mac Truck manufacturing corridor into an IIoT industrial corridor. A comprehensive Phase I Report of the Plainfield IIoT Industrial Corridor project at its current stage of development are available