I have several interesting discussions whenever I told the audience in my Talks regarding why Smart Cities should have these traits of becoming more:

1. Collaborative
2. Responsive
3. Cost-Effective
4. Accountable
5. Transparent

If you asked the citizens whether they wanted their Governments or Local Authorities to embrace those qualities, the answer would be a big “YES.” But somehow it doesn’t resonate well to the other parties (Governments or Local Councils). Why?

We knew how IT helped to make organizations more cost-effective, but when you have a deeper integration with each and every device that you monitored with IOT sensors connected, the jitter gets down to the bones of the people who managed the assets.

Imagine that when every “assets” linked to the person responsible. It can be good or bad depending on how that person handles and manage that asset.

But that’s how IOT works – reducing cost and getting higher efficiency.

If you are a Captain of a sinking ship – what’s your first instruction – plugging the hole of the ship or steer to a new direction?

Of course, the answer would be to plug the holes and stabilize the ship before you can steer to the new direction. It’s the same for any organizations, even before they create new revenue streams, they must be able to identify areas of improvement, reduce any stumbling blocks, streamline and shorten the process, reduce manual work and increase automation. And that’s what IOT does!

Countries such as Japan and Korea kept improving their services because they have reached a state where everything should be automated, and services are citizen-focused.

Thus, every country that wanted to implement their vision of Smart City must understand where the priorities are.

It’s not enough to simply “want” a Smart City. Get the trust from the citizens, and you will get them to build the Smart City that you envision.

Thanks to Dr. Keoh Sye Loong from the University of Glasgow Singapore, three IoT projects are now in under development using FAVORIOT platform. The projects are:

(1) Fleet IoT Security Hardening and Audit Automation

(2) Smart Waste Sensing for Efficient Waste Management

(3) Design and Development of an Intelligent Aquaponics System with
Internet of Things

Interesting Articles

• How-To Develop Smart River Monitoring
• How-To Develop Smart Garbage Collection
• How-To Develop Smart Flood Monitoring System
• How-To Develop Smart Agriculture Solutions

FAVORIOT offered a very affordable pricing plan as shown below:

The Beginner Plan is very suitable for University students who have been assigned or chose IoT project as their Final Year Project. A single device such as Raspberry Pi or Arduino that collects from several connected sensors can stream to the IoT platform. A simple dashboard is provided to visualize the measurements. This plan is also suitable for an individual developer or hobbyist that would like to familiarize with IoT platform, conduct self-learning or participate in IoT Hackathons. At RM 8.33 (or less than USD 2.00) per month, you can become the next Generation-IoT and on your way to be one of the rare talents in the job market today!

The Startup Plan is perfect for Freelancers or SMEs or Startups to provide IoT solution for a medium size project up to 150 devices. In fact, they can also create multiple projects or applications but limited to the total number of 150 devices.

The Business Plan is great for developing big commercial IoT project. It can support up to 300 devices for many smart applications. However, if a company requires connecting thousands of devices, they may contact/email their customised requirements to sales@favoriot.com

How do you know you are perfectly healthy if you don’t have a regular and comprehensive medical checkup? How often do you check your:

1. Cholesterol level
2. Blood pressure level
3. Body Mass Index
4. Diabetes risks level

Through a regular check up you only know how healthy is your body.

The city is analogous to a body. The intertwined roads with junctions and traffic lights are similar to our blood vessels that carry oxygen to the brain. No one wants a clogged blood vessel, right?

Pollutions from the car, factories, open burning are as unhealthy as any smokers. Vandalism, drugs, crime, are similar to what unhealthy foods that we eat. If we don’t control what we eat, the food will eventually “kill” you.

The above are some examples, how our human bodies have the similar features and functions like the cities. Cities will be sustainable, healthy and livable if the we take good care of them. And how are we going to do that?

Any medical examination mentioned above (cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI, Diabetes, etc.) requires accurate measurements via specific devices or sensors. All results will then be consulted via experienced doctors to determine how healthy or any prescriptions required.

Thus, how do we measure our cities “healthiness”, “happiness”, “livable”, “safety” index? How do we measure “sustainability”? How do we compare these city indicators with all cities around the world? What kind of sensors required to capture the relevant data?

Thus, it’s important for us to have a regular and full “health” check up of our cities like what we did for ourselves.