Hilliard CityLab grows municipal broadband, AI sandbox and drone testing to support startups and civic services

Dwayne Powell, Hilliard’s chief information officer and IT director, said the city has turned municipal fiber and COVID-era funding into a technology incubator that provides internet access, prototyping resources and public-safety tools for startups and city departments.

“The premise, around back in 02/2019 or even prior to me coming to the city was fiber was very important for business, for economic development,” Powell said, describing the initial push to build a municipal fiber network. He said the network became the backbone for several CityLab programs that followed.

CityLab’s programs include a private cellular (CBRS) network that Powell said the city used to equip students with modems rather than relying on short-term hotspot programs. “We took that and built a private cellular network or CBRS network … and secured, modems that we could give to the students working in partnership closely with our schools,” Powell said. He added, “Our program, because we bought the hardware, is still operational, and we're still expanding it.”

Powell described Hilliard’s broadband offering (marketed as HiFiO) as city-owned fiber infrastructure that multiple private internet-service partners use. He listed partner providers as BreshCo Broadband, CNI, 3 Lanterns, Lanier 1 and said Glo Fiber had just signed on. By providing the fiber into buildings, Powell said the city shortens or eliminates costly, time-consuming infrastructure installs when businesses change providers.

CityLab also supports hardware prototyping and small-scale manufacturing through OMIC, an on-site electronics lab. Powell said OMIC received two state grants and hosts paid internships in partnership with the Hilliard City School District; the lab can produce short runs of custom circuit boards so local startups can iterate rapidly without long overseas lead times.

The incubator hosts a range of companies, Powell said, from a hydration-monitoring device used for worker safety to a startup that rebuilt municipal splash-pad controls on a low-cost Raspberry Pi-based controller. He said the corridor of CityLab buildings directly housed more than 33 active companies and that payroll inside those buildings rose from just under $2.3 million before 2019 to more than $3 million in 2023. Powell said municipal grants “just under a million dollars” have leveraged “over $80,000,000 worth of private investment” along the I-270 corridor.

On artificial intelligence, Powell described an “AI sandbox” where startups can prototype models and code without risking unexpectedly large cloud bills. “By creating an ecosystem where they could prototype and beta test, and the only penalty is you may get a call that says please please stop that process as opposed to running up a very large bill,” he said, characterizing the sandbox as a proof-of-concept environment rather than a long-term hosting solution.

Public-safety applications were another CityLab focus. Powell described camera analytics developed with partners UV Vision and Big Kitty Labs to detect anomalies—examples he cited included a crash and a delayed 911 alert. He said the goal is to alert operators to unusual events without conducting facial recognition or continuous surveillance. On emergency drone response, Powell said the city has three airspace-control platforms deployed on city buildings and had just submitted a waiver to the FAA for beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights: “We have our waiver in with the FAA. It was just finished up last week, so we're hoping we get approval so that we can begin flights.”

Looking ahead, Powell said CityLab is expanding infrastructure with a LoRaWAN (long-range, low-bandwidth) network the city expects to deploy this year. He said that network can connect Internet-of-Things devices inexpensively—he described deployment costs “really under $10,000” and a potential device range of up to about seven miles for low-data sensors. Powell said that additional connectivity and testing opportunities will attract more companies to pilot smart-city and industrial Internet-of-Things applications in Hilliard.

Chase Evans, identified on the podcast as a cohost from the City of Hilliard, and host Michelle Gadschel framed the conversation and asked about practical access for startups. Powell said the application and engagement process is informal and directed interested companies to hilliardcitylab.com for tours, introductions to economic-development staff and grant information.

CityLab’s officials emphasized that the initiative aims to keep companies local: “We want them located in Hilliard,” Powell said, noting the city tracks payroll and employment as measures of success rather than judging technologies. Powell said CityLab had helped some startups form partnerships with local manufacturers (he cited an antenna manufacturer working with a startup on a new design) and that state and regional officials had inquired about expanding similar programs more broadly across Ohio.

Powell and the hosts did not announce any formal legislative actions, bids, contracts or deadlines during the interview. Several program details—such as the exact current count of participating companies for 2024 and pending FAA approval for the drone waiver—were described as ongoing and subject to future change.

The CityLab team requested inquiries via the CityLab website and said regular tours and outreach events (including AI Week and visits from OhioX) bring potential partners and students into the incubator.