Smart City Initiative | 1st Winner KP Goes International Feb 2017

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According to Natalie Duffield, CEO of Intechnology Wifi in his article entitle “The Real Advantages of Smart Cities”. The smart city has developed to some sectors, no longer just technologi industry. This is a great initiative to get each other connected. The smart city is big innovation for public activities, for traffic management, control system transportation, more efficient services from government, the smart city initiative system more efficient to control city activities and the other sectors. Smart city will have immediate benefits felt by the society, government, and lay the foundations for future innovation. Because, the smart city initiative give more benefit, certainly i agree with these statement for some reasons.

First, developing smart city can be solve the cities problems, Cities are growing faster than the world population. It is increasingly challenging for large and fast growing cities to manage their operations, the smart city is solution for that problems.

Second, it will improve operational efficiency, smart cities can reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and improve waste management. According to experts opinion, Anil Chaudhry, President, and head, Sehneider Electric India, in 2014 said that the major benefits from information, communication, and technology adoption would be efficiency and transparency, with majority of civic agencies mentioning this, around 84 percent of survey respondents believe costs saving and promoting citizen participation would be the other benefits and Wim Elfrink, chief globalization officer at Cisco, writes in a Mc kinsey report in 2015 ”When you get to a critical mass, the data on the benefits is so compelling a 50 percent reduction over a decade in energy consumption, a 20 percent decrease in traffic, an 80 percent improvement, in water usage, a 20 percent reduction in crime rates. The concept of smart cities really sells it self ”.

Third, As smart cities will rely on intelligent technology, it will be able to better serve its citizens. For example, monitoring entries and exist at car parks to accurately reflect avalability facilitates parking, traffic management, improving the flow of traffic throught signal phasing and control can reduce traffic jam, make smart changes to transport system, and give benefit for other sectors. According to Ricky cooper, VP EMEA project in 2015 “The concept of smart city can take many forms “some focus on transportation strategies while others look at isues such as waste management, housing and community facilities”.

As with any technology, smart city technology come with downsides. Futuristic technologies will not fix basic urban problems in existing cities such as haphazard growth pattern and poor neightbourhood design. While smart technologies strive to bring sustainability. It can not overcome issues such as bad building location and sub standard architecture.

Smart city technologies rely on constan monitoring can have negative ramifications on citizens morale as the technology can be considered on intrusion of privacy these privacy concern are legitimate. Data that can be used to find a parking spot can also be used for surveillance.

Everything about technology have downsides, but certainly there are the solutions for solve a problem. According to expert opinion, Cordaid in 2015. First, The Smart Solution Urban Resilience reduces people’s vulnerability, strengthens their capacity and reduces the risk of hazards in slums. This is done via a Participatory Urban Risk Reduction Planning Process with all relevant stakeholders. For this Cordaid has developed specific tools such as the “Urban Collaboration Game” and the “Community managed disaster risk reduction training manual”. Second, The Smart Solution Housing delivers permanent and affordable housing to people who currently live informally. Soft loans make home ownership accessible. Cordaid supports the setting up of housing corporations and entices the private and public sectors as well as the community to invest. The solution is scalable and replicable.

In conclusion, smart city is a good innovation to improve our lives to be better, smart cities are not a question of ’if’, but a certainly of ‘how’ and ‘when’. According to ABI Research projects in 2016, cities will spend a whopping forty billion pounds on smart city technologies. Current projections predict an annual spending on smart city technology at sixteen billion pound by 2020 with the industry valued. At over four hundred billion pounds globally with so many existing cities around the world and many more new oes in the making, every major IT company is preparing for this future and working on finding their niche in the smart citiesmarket.

Name : Ruhkhis M.
Room No. : E7

Reference : http://storage.theinformationdaily.com/2015/08/13/beyond-the-buzz-the-real-advantages-of-smart-cities

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