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The rapid progress of intelligent urban innovation, reflected in the transformative impact of Smart Cities, a trend which is already immensely popular and becoming even more so, raises a number of questions. As the popularity of Smart Cities constantly rises and their implementation spreads, so do the opportunities for cybercriminal attacks.
Applications have opened for the 2019 North American Readiness Challenge for cities, an annual program by the Smart Cities Council, running for the third year. Past iterations of the Challenge have helped nearly a dozen cities and states advance their smart cities initiatives. The deadline is on January 18, 2019, and five jurisdictions will be selected in March 2019, to receive significant assistance in their effort to become smart.
Artificial Intelligence can play an important role in the development of Smart Cities. This is a part of the vision to transform Thailand’s economy into an innovation-driven economy, as a part of the Thailand 4.0 Initiative, which includes the creation of 100 Smart Cities within two decades, in order to improve citizens’ quality of life.
The Internet of things (IoT) is a popular term used to describe a network of physical devices connected with each other to exchange the data they collect. IoT devices are becoming widespread on a consumer level, making peoples’ lives more efficient. Used on a city level, however, the IoT can help make Smart Cities green and eco-friendly.
This white paper is a modular tool for public, private, and government sectors designing processes of public participation in smart city planning. Rather than governments and corporations embracing smart technologies in search of problems, a civic smart city works with citizens to define problems, and reflect on potential solutions, before implementing new technologies. It is a collaborative work between the Engagement Lab at Emerson College, the City as Platform Lab at the University of Waterloo, and the Center for Smart Cities and Regions at Arizona State University.
Schenectady, NY. An example of a small smart city.
Smart City initiatives are usually associated with major cities, like Barcelona, Amsterdam or London, or with burgeoning Asiatic metropolises eager to relieve the problems caused by rapid urbanization. However, there is no reason why smaller cities cannot be smart too. But being a smaller city comes with a distinct set of advantages and disadvantages when it comes to applying smart city initiatives and solutions.
In this report, Francesca Bria and Evgeny Morozov discuss how cities can regain control over technology, data, and infrastructure, as well as over the services that are mediated by smart technologies—such as utilities, transportation, education, and health. Through a wide range of case studies from across the globe, the authors discuss alternative smart city models, which rely on democratic data ownership regimes, grassroots innovation, and cooperative service provision models.