The city of Los Angeles in the United States has developed a mobile app that allows residents to be warned about an impending earthquake up to ninety seconds before it reaches them.
Los Angeles, like T&T, sits on an active fault zone that makes it susceptible to earthquakes.
The warning will allow people time to shelter in a safe place in the advent of a tremor.
Speaking here at the opening ceremony of the annual GSMA mobile technology conference, the city’s Mayor Eric Garcetti said LA was not afraid of technology but intended to lead it.
He said innovation was at the heart of LA that has now made it the world’s third-largest metropolis economy, which this year would celebrate 50 years since the first-ever email was sent.
Garcetti told mobile providers and technology entrepreneurs that the 5G age was upon us with the potential to alter people’s lives.
An example of this would be the ability to have autonomous driving vehicles, to allow people to find the quickest routes home using roads that would not normally be part of their journey and build cities based on future technologies.
T&T is expected to roll out 5G in the coming year.
The LA Mayor said his city was not afraid of transparency and was using data to allow its citizens to see what is being done and to question their representatives.
The open data policy allows residents to see from roads that are being paved to agreements entered into between the city and private companies.
Garcetti said LA was also using technology to face some of its greatest challenges including developing a cyber crime alert that brings together private companies and public law enforcement.
He noted that the issue of climate change and carbon footprint were also being addressed by the use of technology in the development of alternative means of transportation and cleaner energy.