Smart Cities - Lessons From The Global Village

The world is becoming a smaller place

Cities (and the data they generate) are growing at an exponential rate. The idea behind Smart Cities is to utilise new technologies to respond to the challenges growing cities bring. Those challenges range from traffic management to the maintenance and operation of infrastructure. The connecting theme is finding ways to use data to manage or influence human behaviour. By way of example, a scheme used to make a city smarter would be to provide the ability for smartphone-equipped road users to take pictures of potholes and send these to local councils, so that the potholes can be fixed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Being smart however does not necessarily achieve a sustainable and smart economy. In Rio de Janeiro, an award winning 'mission control' approach to monitoring and improving Brazil's infrastructure and economy is only as effective as the capability or willingness of the population to utilise it. To date, the greatest impact of the Rio control room has arguably been to provide, through live feeds of civil unrest in the City, a compelling new form of reality TV. Nonetheless...