IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

This report covers the global market for smart city technologies and regional analysis of North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Rest of World. Component segments include communications, hardware, sensors and software as well as in-depth market size and forecast for key end-user segments including energy management, water management, transportation management, assisted living, e-government and waste management.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan reveals a $3.3 trillion market potential in smart cities by 2025 with multiple opportunities to tap into infrastructure development, technology integration, and energy and security services.

Frost & Sullivan will be organising a web conference providing an analysis of the smart city market discussing the market opportunity, growth areas, and new business models on Thursday, 5 September 2013, at 16.00 BST. Senior Partner, Sarwant Singh, Program Manager, Archana Amarnath, and Team Leader, Archana Vidyasekar, will facilitate the discussion along with IBM Vice, President Karen Parrish, and other key industry players.

Google's sister company Sidewalk Labs has revealed a massive plan for investing about $990 million to build a waterfront area in Toronto, Canada into a high-tech smart city.

Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff said the company is releasing the draft Master Innovation and Development Plan for Toronto's eastern waterfront, titled "Toronto Tomorrow A New Approach for Inclusive Growth" after 18 months of preparations.

The Communications and Informatics Ministry has picked Mimika of Papua, to be included among 25 regencies in the country to build a smart city in 2017.

A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate information and communication technology and Internet of things technology in a secure fashion to manage a citys assets.

According to Alejandro Melchor III, deputy executive director for ICT industry development at the ICTO, the “Smarter Philippines” consists of the following components: Smarter Governance, Smarter People, Smarter High-Tech Industry, Smarter Computing, Smarter SMEs, Smarter Agriculture World Development, Smarter Environmental Healthcare, Energy and Transport, Smarter Disaster and Mitigation, Public Safety and Smarter Cities.

Last year, Greece’s capital city, Athens, hired its first Chief Digital Officer – Konstantinos Champidis talks to Smart Cities World about his first 18 months in the job.

Many cities hired Chief Digital Officers years ago and their smart city drives are well underway. Athens has had other things on its mind.

How individuals and corporate plug into the bigger picture of a better ecosystem in realizing smart cities is the responsibility poised to the Kenyan society today.

During the IoT & AI Summit held in Nairobi, Konza City was termed the ‘dream of Africa’ in its realization.

The Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel) announced on September 21 that it has started providing 5G service and put into operation the infrastructure of Internet of Things (IoT) in Ho Chi Minh City.

Major General Hoang Son, Deputy General Director of Viettel Group said that after more than 3 months of making the first test call on the 5G platform, Viettel officially broadcasted 5G network on a trial basis in ward 12 of District 10, HCM City, enabling people to directly experience 5G technology.

As a city’s management network increases to include streetlights, water and electric meters, traffic signals, security cameras and more, these growing numbers of connected devices and sensors augment services and complexity. This raises concerns around whether smart cities are also secure cities.

The smart cities concept is intended to improve the lives of city residents, make governance more effective, and resource consumption more efficient through a digital transformation. However, as digital tools become more prevalent in managing smart city development these same tools are vulnerable to security threats and risks. As cities across the world strive to modernise infrastructure to levels that are fully integrated, the complexity of multiple systems connecting and sharing data through the network grows. Essential to the success of secure smart cities is the near-instantaneous collection, analysis and sharing of large quantities of data from various sources. Thus, the primary purpose of smart cities technologies is to make cities data-driven; allowing city systems and services to be responsive and actionable in real-time.

Leading vendors like Cisco and Panasonic see a shift in smart city planning with municipal leaders leading the way. Technology has the ability to make living in a city safer, more efficient and more enjoyable. Major companies involved in smart city innovations — like Cisco and Panasonic — produce technologies that do just that.

Cities may make the brain more susceptible to mental-health conditions, notably depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. A study from 2011, published in the magazine Nature, shows that city inhabitants have a stronger reaction to stressors than those living elsewhere. The study shows that the agitation that city-dwellers experience can be linked to public transportation delays and traffic jams. It also shows that urbanites are less able to cope with negative emotions than people living in rural areas. In research from 2010, Peen, Schoevers, Beekman, and Dekker demonstrate a strong correlation between urban life and poor mental health. Although it’s challenging to determine precisely how a complex environment such as a city affects the brain, scientists are investigating the differences in the way that people living in cities and rural areas process stressful situations.

At MWC Americas 2018, TechRepublic spoke with Peter Linder, Head of 5G Marketing for North America with Ericsson about how IoT sensors will be key to creating efficiencies and improving services in tomorrow's smart cities.

Smart Cities, says Peter Linder, Head of 5G Marketing for North America with Ericsson, will be reliant on creating efficiencies and improving services, on IoT sensors. Linder chatted with TechRepublic's Teena Maddox at MWC Americas 2018.

Providing modern data and algorithms to provide solutions for everything from smart city transportation and lighting to agricultural and energy management, Fybr has created a platform for our connected world.

We spoke with CEO Bob Glatz and Chief Engineering Officer Bret Beringer about the solutions provided by the company, how they deal with cybersecurity threats, and interesting ways the platform can be utilized.

China has been making tremendous efforts to transform its top megacities into smart ones through innovation, government support and international cooperation, said current and former officials of Chinese and American cities at a summit on Wednesday.

Air and water pollution, healthcare burdens, and demographic issues are among the primary challenges facing these heavily populated cities, said Annise Parker, former mayor of Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States.

The more connected IoT devices a smart city employs, the greater the risk to individual privacy. Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs is an example of how smart city technology brings new security challenges.

The next generation of urban infrastructure is on the horizon. As the technologies of the Internet of Things (IoT) become increasingly prolific, we can soon expect to see local authorities relying on it to improve living, working and traveling conditions in myriad ways. Everything from road traffic to municipal services could be more efficiently managed, and environmental issues from noise levels to air pollution improved.

Smart cities have the potential to help countries meet global sustainability goals but to do so they must be built on trust.

Sustainability is a powerful force for positive change in our world; one that is driving transformation, innovation and improvement across all aspects of society. No longer limited to conserving natural resources, sustainability now encompasses a range of challenges including urban growth, transportation, carbon footprint and even work-life balance. As the world’s population is expected to increase by an estimated 33% before 2050, and with nearly 70% of those people living in urban environments, sustainability has become a focal point for forward-thinking cities. Making city life work sustainably for all is a growing concern but one which is not insurmountable.

As technologies continue to advance across the globe, CSO Magazine evaluates the innovations smart cities have to offer

Sidewalk Labs

Owned by Alphabet, Sidewalk Labs is one of the most prominent smarty city-focused companies. The firm aims to improve urban living by addressing issues such as rising rent prices and environmental damage. “New technology can help, but people can’t afford to wait for digital advances to transform the urban environment. So we’re creating a new type of place to accelerate urban innovation and serve as a beacon for cities around the world,” the company claims. Debuting its technologies in Toronto, Canada, the company is working on a project on the Eastern Waterfront. Sidewalk Labs is working with Waterfront Toronto and the local community to improve mobility, housing and real estate, city services and public spaces by making them more safe, sustainable and efficient.

Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, research director at market research and advisory firm IDC Government Insights, explained in an interview with Government Technology that smart cities adopt a broader view of sustainability. Beyond its typical environmental implications, sustainability also applies to things like infrastructure development and economic development.

China has become the world's largest market for smart city projects, which the Chinese government greatly supports.

Where do the opportunities lie?

Generally, the smart city is made up of three parts: one, the base or foundation that includes optical cables, 5G network, data centre and others; two, the big data level that includes cloud computing; and three, the application level that includes virtual reality, self-driving technology, e-government and others. Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are integrated into all three parts.

The world’s two greatest populations, China and India, will be the major contributors of an additional 2.9 billion people by 2050, according to The United Nations. With existing cosmopolitan cities getting increasingly populated, it is simply not feasible to just keep packing in the people without implementing some major changes.

Ovum, an analyst and consulting company, recently published a report titled ‘Is your city smart enough?’, and recommended that information technology be embedded as a crucial part of designing, building and operating cities more efficiently. Ovum also predicts that hundred of new cities will be built and expanded to accommodate this influx of population. The report suggested two strategies on how technology can improve city living – first with a Digital-City strategy, and next with Digital-Society initiatives.