Topic: smart-city-technology

Lessons learned from the pandemic have made health a key area of the smart city. The evolution of technologies that improve residents’ health and wellbeing is accelerating – but how exactly are cities leveraging data to improve health?  

Over the past years, the smart city concept has reached a state of mainstream acknowledgment throughout the world. However, several important aspects are subject to constant debate:

• What is the best or a suitable smart city definition?
• Does the smart city concept apply to cities only, or does it include rural or smaller communities?
• Is the smart city concept technology- or human-centric?
• What are the key success factors of leading smart cities?
• What are the strategic governance approaches?
• What can be derived from best practices in smart cities development?

In our review on becoming a smart city, we will cover all of these topics that relate to the smart city evolution and defining the term smart city from a practical perspective.

The digital association BITKOM has presented the results of the Smart City Index 2022. The Smart City Index highlights the progress of major German cities in terms of digitization. This makes it the most comprehensive digital ranking of German cities.

Once again, all German cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants were under the microscope for this year's Index. A total of approximately 11,000 data points from 81 major cities were collected, reviewed, and analyzed.

The main evaluation process focused on five key urban categories: Administration, IT and Communication, Society, Mobility, and Energy and Environment. Each category included 36 indicators, which in turn were subdivided and categorized by 133 parameters.

Michal Lakomski is the Mayor's Proxy for Smart City in the city of Poznan in the Greater Poland region. As the Mayor’s Smart City Proxy, and as the Director of Digitalization and Cybersecurity Department for Poznan City Hall, his role involves supervising and overseeing the city’s digital transformation and overall evolution into a modern smart city.

Under his leadership, Poznan has already made an impression as one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in Europe, embracing new technologies, supporting innovation, and putting its citizens first.

Jamie Cudden is the leader of Dublin City Council’s Smart City program. The Smart City program focuses on embracing new technologies to solve the many challenges that the city faces to make Dublin a more liveable city for all of its residents. Using pioneering ideas, involving 5G, Internet of Things, and Big Data, Dublin’s Smart City program has been able to develop and deploy a wide range of solutions for challenges such as citizen engagement, sustainable mobility, energy management, and more.

Since Dublin is a prime example of a smart city in action (read our Smart Dublin City Portrait for more information), we decided to get in touch with Jamie and find out how he helped to steer Dublin into a smarter future.

During the coronavirus outbreak in Amsterdam, city leaders took steps to help citizens at risk of isolation due to lockdown measures. As part of the city's "Everyone Connected" project, an ecosystem comprised of local technologists and civil society groups cooperated to deliver refurbished laptops with Internet connectivity to low-income, elderly and other citizens with below-average digital access. This is an example of a local ecosystem responding to an urgent situation that threatened to exacerbate digital and social exclusion. Smart city ecosystems are vital in implementing sustainable solutions and responding to a crisis.

Law enforcement has been using technology to solve crimes for more than a century. Using technology to prevent crimes, however, is a relatively new idea. The movie Minority Report famously depicts a futuristic society in which police officers arrest people before they commit crimes. It’s a deeply disturbing movie with a not-too-subtle message about the danger of relying too heavily on technology.

Nevertheless, a small industry has emerged around the practice of predictive policing. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans and other cities have experimented with predictive policing programs. The experiments have been inconclusive and controversial. 

What is a smart city and how is it different from our traditional notion of a city? There is no single definition for a smart city. The term itself is a moving target and every city is different.

That said, here are 10 ideas that can help us envision and define the smart city concept:

The importance of smart cities & smart citizens: In our new interview series, smart city leaders comment on the future of smart cities, the role of technology, and the benefits for citizens. In our first interview of the series, we have asked Jonathan Reichental, CIO of Palo Alto, California to share his expertise, thoughts and insights with us on a number of important smart city topics.

By 2050, it is estimated that roughly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. With more citizens to serve and a climate that is rapidly degrading, public service efficiency and effective resource usage are becoming pressing issues for cities.

Big tech companies talk a lot about how the solutions to these issues can be found through their innovative new technologies; however, while technical tools are indeed necessary, cities should ensure that their smart city strategy is holistic, multifaceted and, most importantly, citizen-centric, if they want their efforts to bring fruitful results. A contextually adapted and citizen-centric approach, using both human and technological resources, can bring multiple benefits for municipalities, particularly those that are struggling with specific problems - such as inefficient waste management systems, lack of civic participation, or traffic and congestion. In this article, we take a closer look at the advantages of smart city development and lay out the six core benefits of smart cities.