Smart City Air Challenge: Webinar Notes

Webinar 1: Smart City Air Challenge: The Basics

September 12, 2016

Here are the questions that were asked and answered at the end of the webinar. In addition there are clarifications for questions that were not answered fully during the webinar. We used abbreviations for the names of the EPA employees who answered questions (EM for Ethan McMahon, KB for Kristen Benedict and RT for Robin Thottungal). You can see more about the challenge webinars at https://developer.epa.gov/smart-city-air-challenge-webinar-series/.

1. Does the sensor deployment need to be in the same community as the government partner?

EM: Yes, we really want government partners to be part of the solution. We don’t want them to be surprised by projects that are being done around or to them. They can be part of the solution, either by encouraging residents of their community to purchase the sensors at a low or subsidized price or figuring out ways to reduce the air pollution, or check if the pollution is recorded at an accurate level, or so on.

2. How should commitments from partners be submitted? It seems like there won’t be space for formal letters, as done with some grants.

EM: We are looking for who you would partner with, points of contact and what those partners would provide in terms of services or advice or other resources.

I’m actually going to think off to the side if these commitments can be added as an appendix to the application. I’ll give you an answer in more detail in the next few days.

Clarification: First, this is a challenge, not a grant, so it’s not subjected to the same submission requirements as grants. Regarding the partner commitment in the application, please include points of contact, how to contact them and what they will do on the project. In an appendix you may include letters of support from partners (maximum of one page each) that affirms that they will actively collaborate with you and a description of their role.

3. Hello, do you have any hints on how to handle 250-500 sensors? It sounds like an overwhelming amount of sensors, both financially and procedurally

EM: Well we actually think it is a lot of sensors and it’s something that we think will happen in the next few years. I’ll answer here and let Robin and Kristen chime in.

Procedurally, we’ve seen that a lot of communities have installed half a dozen to a dozen sensors. We think a large quantity of sensors will be in play starting in the next few years. And what we’re trying to do is catalyze this to happen earlier. We think it’s OK for people to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t. That’s why these partnerships are so essential. We see that the sensor manufacturers will have to provide some ideas regarding deployment and finances.

RT: One quick response is if you think about the problem of sensor deployment, this has already been addressed. Your smartphone is being used as a GPS location sensor by Google for mapping traffic. Technology-wise this requires a different view. I would highly suggest looking into cloud computing platforms because they have already thought about this problem and created solutions to the problem of having many sensors connecting to them.

From a financial perspective, this is where you guys need to create a successful partnership with industry because they’re also trying to understand how to deploy many sensors in a lower cost platform. These are some of the things we’d like to see being innovated through the challenge as well.

KB: I just want to echo some of things you’ve just said. The main purpose of the challenge is to learn and to work with communities and learn from you how to manage large volumes of environmental data. The challenge money is intended to be seed money and we fully expect you to leverage other resources from sensor manufacturers, data management companies, etc. to achieve the goals of this challenge.

4. Does partnering with city council representatives meet the requirement for partnering with city government?

EM: In our rules we said that we require a local governmental agency [as a partner]. I’m not sure if a city council representative is really the right level of government. It sounds like they’d be in the legislative branch, that is, people’s representatives, rather than in the executive branch, which is where the public health and environmental agencies would reside. I’m going to look into that as well and give you an answer within the next few days.

Clarification: Yes, a city council representative would qualify as a local government partner for this challenge.

5.: Is there a list of suggested sensors?

EM: At this point no and I don’t think we’re going to create a list. We’re hesitant to recommend any specific sensor or other expert in terms of their services or their products. I think this is a gap that hasn’t been filled in terms of how to find these sensors. If you go back to the air quality sensors resource page you’ll find a lot of information about evaluations of different kinds of sensors like this document here, Evaluation of Field-Deployed Low Cost PM Sensors. In reports like that, you’ll see a list of sensors that were used and how they perform in terms of accuracy. But there’s no official list of vendors and what we are trying to do is figure out what communities discover and select. You can ask peer communities or EPA for advice.

6. Just to clarify, communities are free to choose whatever pollutant or pollutants the wish to measure. Be aware that certain sensors are more advanced for certain pollutants than for others. That information is available on the challenge website. What you’ll need to do in choosing pollutants or sensors to procure is describe the level of accuracy, precision and reliability of the sensors and ensure how these will be met, both initially and over time.

7. Are in kind contributions from the government allowed?

EM: The answer is yes if it’s a local government because we want them to be part of the team. We haven’t thought about other levels of government, like state government or federal government. I will check on that. But it’s actually encouraged for local governments to provide some kind of funds. It’s also encouraged for local governments [to work with] the people receiving the sensors within their community [so they] pay some kind of some kind of nominal fee. That can defray the costs of the whole project.

Clarification: Yes, governments and their agencies can provide resources for the challenge.

8. Explain a little more about the team member age limit at 15 years.  What exactly makes a team member. If high school aged students 14 – 18 are used to help collect data, does that make them a team member or just a participant?

EM: For the submission to us, the members of the submitting party will collaborate to submit a solution. Let’s say it’s Franklin High School or something like that. They have students who are 15 years old and older who are working with their city or town government as a partner. In that case, yes, the students have to be 15 years or older.

We’re coming into a gray or interpretive area. It’s likely that people of many ages could be using the sensors and these people can be younger. But if we’re talking about a team that’s submitting to us, as far as them being a partner on a larger team, then they have to be 15 or older. I hope that’s clear enough.

Clarification: The members of the applying team have to be 15 years or older (with parental consent). However, there is no restriction on the age of people who use the sensors.

9. Can municipalities be the main applicant?

EM: Yes.

10. What are you looking for in terms of community involvement in purchasing sensors? Does this mean a local government paying for all of the costs, or some of the costs, or could the funds come from other sources, such as donations, grant money, or even crowdfunding?

EM: I think those are all great ideas and what we’re doing is looking for innovation at the local level. So if you have ideas for how to get funding for this, then that would be great. That could help people who are in the same position as you learn these other methods for getting funding.

11. Will these types of sensors ever be used for regulatory monitoring?

KB: most of the sensors that are on the market today are not accurate enough to be used for regulatory decisions, but it is possible that they could be used for preliminary screening. In this challenge, the primary objective is to understand how communities will manage big data. But a secondary objective is to help communities and people be aware of localized air quality levels in their communities. So if these sensors were to indicate that pollution levels were high, communities could ask their state, Tribal or local agencies, or if necessary, EPA, to conduct a more thorough evaluation and of the air quality to determine what actions, if needed, need to be taken. These sensors may provide a preliminary screen, but at this point in time, we don’t see these sensors that are able to meet national EPEM: standards and the data would not inform our regulatory decisions.

12. Can you elaborate on the EPA endorsement rule. Is the winner precluded from saying they are partnering with the EPA in their project?

EM: In this case, you cannot put an EPA logo or seal or anything like that on your project and say that it’s an EPA project. The project would belong to the winning teams. You can state that some of the funding came from EPA. As far as partnering, I would even say that EPA is not a partner in this. We are there for advice as needed and you can have other partners on the project.

13. If municipalities are eligible to apply doesn’t that nullify the rule that federal employees or entities cannot apply?
EM: I’m not sure what the question is about. If you work at a federal agency like NASA and this was part of your regular job, you could not participate in this challenge.

14. What is the distinction between the two parties?

EM: Looking at slide 8, we can see that applicants may not be a federal entity or a federal employee acting within the scope of their employment. So I can’t apply. If I see more details in the chat area then I will respond to that.

15. So, citizen applicants are preferred over government applicants, like a local government air board?

EM: The application would need to include some local agency and any other partners. So if an individual citizen in that community wanted to be a partner it’s unclear if they would act on their own, like an individual. They may be part of an organization in the community that can also partner with a local government air board – I can check if that would really qualify as a government agency. I think it would. I’ll clarify on that. I hope that’s an adequate answer for now.
Clarification: A local government air board would qualify as a local government partner for this challenge.

16. Are you interested in indoor air quality at all for this project? Or outdoor air quality?

KB: I’m not sure we make a distinction in the challenge, but I believe the intention was that we would have this focus on outdoor air quality, but we can certainly follow up on that question and provide an answer.

EM: I can provide a little bit of insight. Because EPA is not providing lot of incentive in terms of the seed funds, we’re not putting lots and lots of constraints on what you would measure. [The choice of pollutants to measure] is left open to things that are of concern to any specific community. So if your community is concerned about outdoor air quality, you’re allowed to measure those items. If you’re concerned about indoor air quality, you can measure that. If you’re concerned about some kind of mixture of indoor and outdoor air quality of the same pollutant that’s also your decision.

17. If I was working for a municipality and I applied on behalf of my city wouldn’t that break the rule about being an employee and applicant?

EM: Isaac, I don’t know if you’re a federal employee or not. Let’s go back to slide eight about who is eligible to apply. So if you are a federal employee and you do this as part of the work, then you can’t bill the government for doing your regular work and get funding for this challenge. But if you work for a municipality, then you’re allowed to work on this as long as your supervisor says it’s okay. I hope that makes it clear.

18. I’m not clear either. The applicant is not a government employee, local or state. The partner needs to be government entity. Right?

EM: If you worked for a municipality, you’d still need some kind of local government agency to be a partner, whether you work on it as an individual or as the agency itself. The agency is actually the entity that would be applying to EPA for this challenge.

The partner has to be a local government agency. If you have some kind of letter of support [that describes how they’ll help you] from your state that would be OK, They could participate as advisors. They could act as funders as well.

19. Can you give us examples of adequate government partnership?

EM: We’re thinking in terms of, let’s say, a county public health agency or a county department of environmental protection or the state equivalent or even a city equivalent.

KB: We can put out this information after the webinar.

20. Or is this really asking for us to ask our government to fund the planning for the competition?

EM: The partnerships could include many types of organizations. For instance, if you were a local environmental organization that worked on clean air in your neighborhood or your town, you could apply to this challenge as long as your local government agency was a partner. Then you could find additional partners as it makes sense. Similarly, if you as an individual were concerned about something like this you could ask the local government to act [on the challenge]. If the local government was concerned they could ask the local citizens, residents to act as well. Maybe people could calibrate or deploy or analyze the data from the sensors. There’s got to be a way for citizens to be involved in this and understand their own local environmental conditions.

It’s coming up on quarter of 3 my time and we said we’d end at 10 minutes till the hour so we’ll finish this webinar soon.

21. Are DC communities eligible?

EM: Yes because we are defining communities as neighborhoods to counties to Tribes. It could be one or two communities within Washington, DC.

Here’s a resources slide. We do want you to apply to this challenge and keep in touch with us. You can do so by e-mail at smartcityairchallenge@epa.gov. You can also check for discussions that are on the challenge website. There is a resources page and a webinar page where these webinars will be posted for future consumption.

22. Is there a preference for networks near large sources of pollution or for an environmental justice component to be included?

KB: This challenge is open to structuring your project however you wish. There is not necessarily a preference for a network near a source of pollution or an environmental justice component. That being said, should there be an environmental justice issue, the sensors aren’t necessarily able to help us inform regulatory decisions, they could potentially provide a screen and if needed, EPA could possibly look into taking additional action. So we don’t have constraints on exactly how you structure your application.

We’re going to follow up and answer the questions that were not fully answered. We’ll put that on our webinar page.

EM: In closing, we want to thank you for taking time to listen to this webinar and provide questions about the challenge. It’s always good to get some refinements so we can make it clearer for you.

I’m very enthusiastic about the amount of response we’ve had. We advertised this webinar about six days ago and we’ve got over 30 people participating.

But more than that, this is really a chance for EPA to learn from communities how to manage the huge amounts of data that will be created in the coming years. We think it’s important for people to understand their local environmental conditions. EPA is looking forward to learning from you how to use that information.

KB: I just wanted to thank everyone for participating in this webinar and we certainly appreciate your questions. We’ll get back to you about any answers that were not fully covered. They were certainly great questions. Thanks for sending those and have a great afternoon.

RT: Thanks for joining in. We are excited about this challenge. The list know how we can be of help because we are here to help you guys move through this one. Thank you.

EM: Please keep in touch. Go forth and do good things.