City adds interactive kiosks throughout downtown area
CINCINNATI — Downtown Cincinnati is getting interactive kiosks focused on helping visitors and residents navigate the city, find social services and discover local businesses.
Mayor Aftab Pureval was at Findlay Market last week to attend the unveiling of the innovative kiosks, called IKE (Interactive Kiosk Experience). The kiosks are a result of a zero-cost partnership between IKE Smart City, the city of Cincinnati and 3CDC.
“With IKE kiosks now installed on our city sidewalks, Cincinnati has joined the ranks as a cutting edge, smart city, providing a bestin-class interactive kiosk to our citizens and visitors to showcase all that Cincinnati has to offer,” Pureval said in a release. “I look forward to seeing our residents and visitors interact with these kiosks to connect with our great city.”
Five kiosks have been installed in the city, and there will be up to 30 installed across downtown Cincinnati in total. Currently, the kiosks are in their preliminary phase one, and phase two is still being finalized for siting, said Aaron Conroy, development manager for IKE Smart City and its sister company, Orange Barrel Media.
Some of the kiosks are permitted, some are under permit and some are still being evaluated.
The IKE kiosks have double-sided, ADA-compliant touchscreens, and each kiosk serves as a free WiFi hotspot displaying information specific to the surrounding area of where the kiosk is located. There will also be multilingual content listings and directories of local businesses, events, job listings, social services, food support and more.
Each kiosk also features an app that will highlight the historical importance and background of the downtown neighborhood where it is located.
“We are thrilled to partner with 3CDC and the city of Cincinnati to bring IKE to this vibrant and historic urban community. IKE will further activate the pedestrian experience providing widespread connectivity, wayfinding and equal access to information to all communities,” said Pete Scantland, CEO of IKE Smart City.
The kiosks can also display severe weather alerts, AMBER alerts, fire warnings, active shooter events and more provided by more than 1,000 different certified authorities.