IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to a recent study conducted by ATG Access, 24% of people in the UK would be happy to fund smart city solutions with their tax contributions.

From the 1,000 people questioned, 57% would be happy for tax to be use towards smart traffic lights.

You don't have to reinvent everything to start your smart city journey. Here are 3 “first-step” smart city projects you can begin in 2019.

Studies show that by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s people will be living in cities. With rapid urbanization, the concept of the smart city has become more and more popular.

Predictions from research firm IDC revealed three particularly interesting trends emerging around the smart cities movement.

For the past three years, the IDC Smart City team has developed its top 10 predictions for the upcoming year. These predictions are designed provide the strategic context to help government leaders — from mayors to city council members to CIOs and innovation offices — transform their organizations by applying technology to real urban challenges, and to provide a springboard for thinking about the future within the context of a structured set of predictions tied to current and next budget cycles.

Dive Brief:

• Following a preview scorecard released in September, Leading Cities and Bright Cities have unveiled their full smart city rating of 500 U.S. cities on Tuesday at Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
• No cities scored an A+ or an A, but four small cities scored an A-: Centennial, CO; Newton, MA; Pleasanton, CA; and San Ramon, CA. "These cities demonstrate that bigger is not always better," the organizations wrote in a press release.
• The ratings use cities' open data to evaluate performance against 32 indicators across 10 dimensions: governance, economy, education, entrepreneurship, environment, health, mobility, security, technology and urbanization.

Spain, UAE, Singapore and Australia, across the world governments and companies are investing heavily in smart city research and projects.

As smart cities in the UK seem to be unknown to the large majority of Brits, other initiatives overseas are making the news.

Over 50 per cent of Nigerian cities will achieve ‘Smart Status’ by 2019, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has said.

NITDA’s Director General, Dr Vincent Olatunji, disclosed this in Abuja at the Nigeria Smart City initiative partners’ forum at the weekend.

Dr Olatunji said the agency would develop, deploy and manage smart (IT) solutions in the cities for the benefit of residents of the cities.

A recent report explores the utility of radio frequency-transparent pultruded composite materials for integrating 5G mobile networks into urban infrastructure.

Transparency to radio frequency (RF) signals is reported to be an emerging factor in favor of composites adoption in urban infrastructure, according to a recently released industry report from the European Pultrusion Technology Association (EPTA, Frankfurt, Germany). The report, “An expanded role for pultruded composites in 5G cities,” outlines how the rollout of 5G mobile networks in cities will drive increased adoption of composite materials in urban infrastructure.

Cities can surmount challenges around infrastructure, partnerships and politics through innovation and collaboration.

Many cities today have ambitions of becoming the smart cities of tomorrow. But to achieve this, they need to overcome the challenges associated with mapping out a complex strategy that involves public and private participants, direct and indirect stakeholders, integrators, network and managed service providers, product vendors and IT infrastructure providers.

Singapore seems to live in 2119. This smart nation is the one to look to for a sneak peek into the future.

While the rest of the world is living in 2019, Singapore seems to be in 2119. The city’s sci-fi views perfectly depict that Singapore is targeting to become a smart nation.

As technology revolutionises the way we live, work and travel, Smarter Tomorrow 2019 provides a forum to consider how smart cities should evolve: along with technological innovation, cities also need to plan for the social experimentation that will lead to the necessary regulatory reform

In recent years, the idea of a ‘smart city’ has shifted from science fiction to meaningless buzzword to – finally – something that is becoming reality for many. Our towns and cities are becoming more intelligent and connected every day.

A new report from Public Services International points to the dangers of ‘corporate-led’ smart city initiatives and insists that these technological paradigms must be designed for people rather than profit. Over the last two decades, ‘smart city’ technologies have revolutionized the way business gets done in and around City Hall.

The announcement was made on Sunday by the Managing Director (MD) of Dewa, Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, before the media and employees of the departments at Grand Hyatt Hotel in Dubai.

UAE are investing heavily in ICT as they seek to diversify their economies, build up a knowledge economy and reduce their reliance on oil and gas. In Dubai, the Dubai Smart City initiative aims to transform the emirate into a leading global smart city over the next few years. The strategy includes over 100 initiatives and a plan to transform 1000 government services into smart services. According to Cisco, Dubai’s public and private sector IT market is valued at Dh17.9bn ($4.87bn) over the next five years, including a public sector opportunity of Dh4.3bn ($1.17bn).

The initiative aims to encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors to achieve targets in six key pillars: smart life, smart transportation, smart society, smart economy, smart governance and smart environment. These areas will be brought together on a single connected, integrated and collaborative smart city platform, with input from the government agencies, businesses and Dubai’s citizens.

Smart cities built on digital technologies are having a profound effect on the real estate world and buildings as we know them are changing. And there is good reason to: according to the UN, by 2030 two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities, and Dubai has the opportunity to lead the way through state-of-the-art smart city initiatives. So, what has changed already and what further changes can we expect to see?

I envision a world where homes and workplaces will become tailored to the way we now live and our digitally-empowered daily routines. In Dubai, the smart cities initiative has already seen city infrastructure begin to transform, using digital solutions and tools to address civic issues like public services, parking, street lighting, utilities and resource management via smart meters and we are now even seeing plans for autonomous vehicles for mass public transport. But in real estate, residential housing and commercial offices, developers are going to see growing demand for smart homes and offices - for developers this is an opportunity to add value through smart solutions and services.

Smart Dubai is at the forefront of bringing digitisation

Dubai has taken the challenge to build a smart city head on and it is laying the foundation of happiness for future generations. This is evident from the projects and initiatives Smart Dubai is currently working on.

Speaking at the Gitex Technology Week on Monday, Dr Aisha bint Butti bin Bishr, director-general of Smart Dubai Office, said the government would go all out to ensure the happiness of residents.

Powered by du, Dubai Pulse platform is a key facilitator in Dubai's shift towards smart technologies

du, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), won the Smart Cities Award at the Telecoms World Middle East 2018 for its role in developing Dubai Pulse-a platform owned by Smart Dubai office. As a strategic partner of Smart Dubai, du established Dubai Pulse platform in 2017- the digital backbone of the city that offers the means of sharing data in order to be utilized by decision makers encouraging innovation. Jihad Tayara, Vice President ICT Commercial - Business Development in du, received the award on behalf of the company.

Ahmad bin Humaidan, Director-General of Dubai eGovernment, announced the department's commitment to the instructions of Shaikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council.

Dubai stood out for its strategic vision coupled with a clear understanding of the practical requirements to deliver on its vision

Dubai's efforts to become smart city in the word help rank the emirate top in a Smart City Index that studies 10 Gulf cities' strategy and execution of smart city campaigns.

Dubai stood out for its strategic vision coupled with a clear understanding of the practical requirements to deliver on its vision, in a study released by Huawei and Navigant.

Emirate boasts very strong data and experience-driven smart city strategy.

Dubai's smart city vision will rely on a complex network of interconnected technologies such as Arificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain to tackle challenges such as sustainability, infrastructure quality, investment and funding, environmental quality, job generation and digital public services.

Experts say that Dubai has already launched several smart city entities and initiatives that will address these challenges to attract investment, create jobs and boost competitiveness. These include the establishment of Smart Dubai and the Dubai Future Foundation, as well as the Dubai Data Initiative, the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, the Happiness Agenda, the Dubai AI Roadmap, and the Dubai Paperless Strategy.

There is a lot of discussions and demos of smart city technologies today that are enhancing the connectivity of everyday services. At the same time there are so many barriers to creating a truly smart city.

What we are currently witnessing is disparate connected services; a patch of Wi-Fi coverage here, some contactless pay pads there. Until we can provide some more consistency in the connectivity we are providing across the city, two things will continue to happen:

• The ‘connected experience’ for people living in cities will fall short
• There will be a huge and ongoing security risk surrounding connected city equipment