Advancing smarter transportation operations with Lenovo and Intel

The FIFA World Cup is the world's game. The fact that we have nine games here in the Metroplex, I mean it's like having nine Super Bowls. So it's been a long run. Almost 18 years of service to the city of Frisco. We're going to end with a bang with the FIFA World Cup 26. It's going to be an exciting year. You know, one of the things we always hear about Frisco is that it was a pleasant surprise. You know, I think people have a perception of Texas or maybe Frisco being a suburban community and they get surprised that we have so much to offer. This really is an entertainment hub and they use the moniker Sports City USA because there's so many teams that are here like the Dallas Cowboys. You know, the Stars are here. You have Rough Rider Baseball. You have the PGA. I think preparation for World Cup 2026 allows us to, you know, really put Frisco on a global stage too. So I think Frisco is forward-thinking and I think that they're an innovation city that is making impact. And you see what it's become today, which is one of the most unique small cities on its way to being a very big city, I think anywhere in the United States. And some of the technology that would maybe been a little bit later or longer down the road, that the city is moving quicker, right? We're jumping hurdles and we're moving those because this is an opportunity to really showcase how forward-thinking this city can be. You know, look, preparing for World Cup 2026 is a gigantic endeavor. I've spent over eight years of my life working on World Cup 2026 and it's something I'm so incredibly passionate about and I look forward to what this is going to mean for this community and others around the Metroplex. And it will be an opportunity that most of us won't see inside of our professional careers again. So with FIFA World Cup 2026 coming to the region, you know, we've been planning this for almost a decade to be prepared for it. We want to have a great visitor experience where they can take in what all Frisco has to offer, hopefully come to our fan fests and watch games here and stay in our hotels. But we also want it to be a great experience for our residents. Obviously the games are a big deal, you know, but it's not just that. It's the International Broadcast Center that we'll have and there'll be 3,500 media members here. But most importantly for us is Frisco will be a base camp for a visiting national team. And so when FIFA World Cup is coming to Frisco, this is a landing place for them. We host, have the opportunity to provide technology, whether that's in media and broadcasting, whether that's in the sports performance side, on-field marketing and work with a lot of the local teams, brands and global organizations now to really be able to help them understand how to drive technology in early stage. And so making an impact for us is the important part. And so being able to work with brands like the Lenovo's of the world and the FIFA's of the world to be able to establish early stage technology is what we're looking to do as a plug-and-play brand. Preparing for FIFA World Cup 26 really involves multiple facets. Think about public safety, our utilities, our parks, our traffic and engineering folks. They all have a role to play. And technology is the back end that really helps facilitate that partnership, connectivity and collaborative approach. The main priorities to keep the city safe really is to make sure, first of all, we safeguard our visitors that are coming to town. We want to make sure that everybody that comes to our city leaves with a good experience. We are known to be one of the safest cities in the U.S. and being able to provide that safe and secure and reliable and consistent experience is really key to what we do. We have very good response times here in Frisco, but certainly every second counts. And, you know, if I can shave five or ten seconds off of a priority one response time, that means everything to the person that's on the other end of the 9-1-1 line. It really means leveraging technology to make the most efficient use of your resources. Technology plays such a critical role in building our foundation. So when I say foundation, it's really building that common operating picture for all of our departments to better integrate, communicate and collaborate. So being able to have a common operating picture, whether it's public safety, transportation, facilities, our traffic department can all have that same picture of what's happening in the city at any given time. Give us a vantage point that we, you know, vitally need to make sure that we're positioning resources appropriately. If we need additional resources, we want to have that vantage point on where they need to go. The investments that we're making from a, you know, public safety perspective and an infrastructure perspective, you have to have those. If people are going to come to your community, they want to be safe. They want to know that they're going to be safe in your community. I think it's important for cities to invest in technology because it helps you utilize your resources much more efficiently. There's a lot of responsibility. There's a lot of competing needs that we have to prioritize. And so I think it's really more about just efficiency of resources, utilizing the technology to help us with those things. Where a lot of people kind of get caught up on that Frisco doesn't is they're looking at the impact is long-term, right? We're making investments in technology that is going to be beneficial for the games and for the millions of people that are coming through, but it's going to be impactful for the hundreds of thousands of residents on a daily basis afterwards. And so I think the impact of what the city is doing in both of these is a big one for us. We couldn't have picked a better place to land and be this hotbed of soccer and the support that we've got with the National Soccer Hall of Fame, with the stadium renovations. So, I mean, this all sort of leads up to World Cup 2026. I think people are going to have a world-class experience in Frisco, Texas.