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22 Capital Partners, a venture builder and private equity company, announced today a new partnership with the Center for Innovative Technology and the George Washington University that will lead development of an ecosystem to create smart city technology, education and innovation in Virginia.
Gramercy District is the first “smart city” in the region and one of the first in the country. The goal is to merge technology with real estate to deliver unique experiences and enhance quality of life. Gramercy District will create an environment that continuously adapts to meet the needs of business partners and guests who are working, living, shopping and playing in the smart city. The vision of the group creating Gramercy District is a model for the new standard of living and working.
The partnership was created to facilitate access to and use of a working smart city development that will connect areas along the Washington D.C. and Washington Dulles International Airport corridor. It will form a living environment built around the needs of entrepreneurs to envision the future and bring smart city education and innovations to market. New technology will be embodied in the 22 CityLink Platform, with the first deployment taking place at the Gramercy District development at the new Silver Line Ashburn Metro Station.
The partnership with the Center for Innovative Technology exemplifies a smart city public-private partnership. CIT is both an authority on technology in the Commonwealth as well as the center of leading edge innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems and early stage investment programs such as the MACH37 Cybersecurity Accelerator, the GAP early-stage investment fund, and the DHS-sponsored EMERGE wearable technology accelerator program.
The George Washington University and its Virginia Science & Technology Campus located in Ashburn, brings professional educational innovations in areas such as cyber security and data analytics along with entrepreneurial development and technology transfer education through the NSF funded iCorps program. GW is the lead for the Pennsylvania Avenue 2040 Environmental Sensing Project in Washington, D.C. and is part of the MetroLab Network, a national Smart Cities initiative for municipalities and research institutions to cooperate on key city-wide issues.
This partnership with GW, the Gramercy District and CIT will support new research opportunities and scale up regional job training activities around Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity, city planning and entrepreneurship. The Gramercy District will be the testbed that provides individuals, businesses and researchers with opportunities for hands-on learning in a Smart City environment built to foster the use of new IoT technologies and methods, leading to a repeatable process for Smart City experimentation and innovation.
Minh Le, managing partner of 22 Capital Partners, said, “Through this partnership we will look to harness this team’s diverse technology expertise and higher education program deployment with this project. Our goal is to build a strong public-private-academia partnership to drive innovation and higher education.” Le continued, “Our project is particularly ideal for this partnership because we are able to take a holistic approach to help foster breakthroughs in technology that will bring practical and economic solutions.”
For more information, visit www.22CityLink.com. Follow us on Twitter @22CapPartners.
