IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Australian city is partnering with newDemocracy, a leading foundation working in citizen participation, to design and oversee the jury process.

Sydney has sent out invitations to 15,000 random households in its hunt to involve “50 everyday people” in a citizens’ jury to feed into its new long-term plan, Sydney 2050.

City of Launceston is proof that smart cities start with smart foundations. Tasmania’s largest local government implemented an integrated enterprise solution to digitally transform operations over time. General Manager Michael Stretton discusses how Launceston’s approach to innovation and digital transformation is helping the city to realise its smart city ambitions.

The Australian government has allocated A$50 million for the Smarter Cities and Suburbs Program to encourage projects that "improve the livability, productivity and sustainability of cities and towns across Australia".

One project funded under the program is installation of temperature, lighting and motion sensors in buildings and bus interchanges in Woden, ACT. This will allow energy systems to be automatically adjusted in response to people's use of these spaces, with the aim of reducing energy use and improving safety and security.

A UK-based maker of connected streetlights, Telensa, reported that the Sunshine Coast Council of Australia has selected Telensa to deploy its PLANet intelligent street lighting system, for a 24-month pilot project. The pilot project will create, demonstrate, and test a smart infrastructure in the Maroochydore City Centre development, and in nearby Evans Street.

The council says that Sunshine Coast is one of the largest and fastest growing regional economies in Australia, and says the Maroochydore City Centre development will create a new capital city for the region with smart technology embedded from the outset.

The city of Palmerston in Australia has selected smart city data applications provider Telensa to deploy an intelligent street lighting system.

The deal is part of an LED streetlight upgrade project and will replace 5,000 streetlights with wirelessly connected LEDs.

The LED streetlights will be controlled via a central management system which will be hosted by Amazon Web Services.

China’s largest insurer is backing the nation’s ambitious smart city program with investment in technology, panelists said during the ULI Asia Pacific Leadership Convivium, held in Shenzhen, China.

Wei Baisong, chief technical officer and chief product officer at Ping An Capital, the venture arm of one of China’s largest insurance companies, said China has plans for 500 smart cities, compared with about 80 in Europe and 40 in the United States.

Brussels residents and visitors will soon be able to share their opinions and recommendations on the city in three of the capital’s districts through the application "Brussels By Us." The Regional State Secretary for Digital Transition Bianca Debaets (CD&V), the Computer Center for the Brussels Region (CIRB) and VUB university’s SMIT research laboratory presented Friday their citizen participation project.

The Northern District, the pedestrian sector and the university U-Square site, on the Ixelles barracks grounds, are the three districts elected for testing. Each site has its own features, public and challenges.

The first digital hub in the region is to be established in the Bulgarian city

The city of Vratsa is located in Northwestern Bulgaria, the slowest growing region in the country and in Europe. Here, unemployment rates are traditionally high and job and development opportunities are predominantly in the service sectors.

Housing Minister Bassim bin Yaqoub Al Hamer has affirmed that the kingdom has made advanced strides at the level of sustainable development following its success in upgrading all aspects of life and improving the living conditions of the citizens through landmark achievements attained thanks to the efforts of the political leadership.

Speaking during a special session on "Smart Cities", held on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) Third Habit Conference in the Ecuadorian city of Quito, the minister added that Bahrain had made pioneering steps in providing innovative solutions to cope with the increasing demand for housing through a package of unconventional solutions such as enhancing cooperation with the private sector and developing long-term programmes, attributing the successes to the unlimited support of the leadership.

US$349 million set aside for smart cities this year, down from US$1.2 billion last year.

Budget for India’s 100 smart cities project have seen a big dip in the 2015-16 Budget announced on 1 March.

This comes as countries around the world race to share their expertise on city planning and sign deals with Indian states to build new cities.

The rumour mill around Apple's California headquarters is spinning mighty fast. Word has it that the Silicon Valley tech giant is cooking up a new, market-smashing product to rival the iPod, iPhone and iPad. The smart money is on something to do with biometrics, very possibly an iWatch.

Cities are undergoing rapid transformation around the world, driven by technological innovation and the search for more efficient and sustainable solutions. Among the terms increasingly found in urban vocabulary is the concept of “smart cityor “smart city.” But after all, what really defines a smart city And what are its characteristics?

One smart city It is much more than a city with an advanced technological infrastructure. It is an integrated urban ecosystem Information and communication technology (Information and communication technology) and physical devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT)The Internet of things) to improve the efficiency of city operations and services, while striving to communicate more effectively with citizens.

Smart cities are no longer a utopian dream of the future. Thanks to a slew of innovative and game-changing technologies, they are already active and growing quickly.

Smart cities could be described as the junction between three main areas, namely digital transformation, environmental sustainability and economic performance. They can be described as a framework made up of connected technologies, designed to address the challenges of rapid urbanisation and promote more sustainable, smarter practices.

While a number of cities are turning to the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless connectivity and cloud computing to improve internal efficiency and service delivery to communities, Kameshwar Rao Sorda, Solutions Director at Huawei Enterprise Southern Africa, says the future lies in harnessing artificial neural networks to automate and continually improve many of these operations.

Machines have long helped us speed up our daily tasks, so the requirement for them to solve more complex mathematical and logical challenges means that we need a different kind of computer. Based on the structure of our brain, artificial neural networks include adaptive learning, self-organisation and fault tolerance features. By using new data and identifying patterns, it can learn or improve upon its performance without being programmed by humans.

Fifty kilometres east of Tokyo we built a model community. A 1,000 home neighbourhood where everything looks pretty normal but where everyday life is infused with technology that makes it one of the most sustainable and resilient places to live on this planet — truly a smart city.

Fujisawa is powered by a solar smart grid, giving the neighbourhood the ability to run off-grid for up to seven days and the town’s carbon emissions are 70 per cent lower than the average community of its size. The roof of the community centre is a public space that sits above the tsunami flood line and, in the event of a natural disaster, the park benches convert to barbecue grills. The entire town is a virtual gated community with blanket 24-7 video surveillance coverage, allowing children to play safely, while their parents watch from their smart phones.

Ottawa will join other major North American cities in sharing traffic data with Google’s Waze app, the city announced Thursday.

Waze provides drivers with crowd-sourced, real-time information to help avoid construction, accidents and other delays on the road.

A coalition of Canada’s urban technology organizations has formed the Open City Network (OCN), a non-profit that aims to develop best practices regarding data governance and technology in smart cities.

The OCN, which launched this week, is a medium for stakeholders to participate in the formation of new technology and policy for smart cities. The Kitchener-based organization also intends to join forces with various levels of government in Canada to tackle the policy proposals of smart city technologies. Through this collaboration, the organization is hoping to develop a framework of standards and procedures for data exchanges in smart cities.

Canadian smart city technology company LocoMobi World Inc. has released a low-cost web-based vehicle access and parking management software system that requires no additional hardware, cameras or control equipment.

LocoMobi World’s vision for its new CondoPark-Lite product was to develop an affordable, safe and easy parking access control system for tenants and visitors of commercial and residential buildings, as well as gated communities, without the requirement of hefty capital equipment expenditures. CondoPark-Lite’s ‘Call When Here’ feature allows tenants and visitors to access the property by simply speed-dialling the gate/door call number from within their vehicle. Access will only be granted if the driver or visitor’s phone number is registered and active at the time they call.

Bringing the Smart City to Life in Calgary

The adoption of smart city technology is helping the City of Calgary become more sustainable, connected, and efficient. The process started over 20 years ago as Calgary steadily built its municipal communication infrastructure. More recently, the City partnered with Semtech to deploy its LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) for connectivity combined with LoRa-enabled devices, sensors and gateways as the tools to provide data communication. Its open standards, ease of deployment, quality, software compatibility and security were all factors that led Calgary to its LoRa implementation.

The expected global market size for smart cities is $1.565 trillion (cumulative) by 2020, out of which smart governance is expected to be about 12% – $180 billion. The market for electronic government services is especially strong in emerging countries which are racing to modernize their public sector and transform citizen service delivery. International institutions like the World Bank, IMF, ADB etc., are encouraging emerging countries to become efficient, transparent and accountable, and are providing significant amounts of funding for their e-government initiatives. Furthermore in the North American market, there is a call for governments to modernize their systems to deliver better services in an integrated fashion with better efficiencies, while reducing their overall costs. Imex Systems Inc.’s offerings are capable of achieving these goals, as it provides all the pre-built components required in building an effective e-government.