We wanted our cities to be livable and prosperous that are built upon well-functioning urban infrastructure services like health, energy, buildings and transportation. Without proper planning, cities will see their social and economic growth stifled in congestion, air pollution, health issues and blackouts. We also believed cities can be smarter if cities can quickly respond to the needs of the people.

The Smart City’s End Game

The final aim of Smart City is to:

• Make a better use of the public resources
• Increase the quality of the services offered to the citizens
• Reduce the operational costs of the public administrations.
• Support better living, create more opportunities, support stronger and more cohesive communities
• Improve the quality of life overall for all residents

By 2050 more than 6 billion people are expected to live in cities. Cities are hubs for cultural and economic activities. They are the engines of economic growth. But the development was not always “smart,” sacrificing health conditions, for instance, for greater productivity.

The Challenges

Cities are complex systems that are difficult to understand without the right information. We need to create cities that address people’s needs. That means learning city challenges by studying the people who use them. With Internet of Things (IoT), it will help us rethink how we monitor, measure and manage cities so we can make them healthier places for their inhabitants. Cities are complicated and have their own set of challenges, such as:

• Multiple authorities and commercial parties manage them.
• They constantly evolve, reacting to the needs of their inhabitants.

To make it happen, it requires a process of negotiation, integration, iteration. And there will be lots of different parties involved: political leaders, civil servants, service providers, technology companies, health services, police forces, property owners and most important of all, the citizens themselves.

Hey, City! Are You Alive?

Ultimately, there is the need to correctly understand our cities and the interactions that make them “alive,” so that we can make more informed decisions about the cities future. But first, answer this question – “Have you measured the Pulse of Your City? How healthy is your city?”

Presentation Slides “Listen to the Pulse of the City Using IoT” – DOWNLOAD

Think “Lean Methodology” – Build, Measure and Learn. I think that’s how we should build Smart Cities. We can no longer take the risks of building projects fast and become “white elephants” which Wikipedia defined as:

A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness.

Most of the times, Smart Cities deployment failed even though we planned well but failed in execution. Failed in getting the citizens to use the facilities. Failed in maintaining and sustaining the business model.

The maturity of acceptance of city dwellers is also an essential element. I don’t think we can just replicate the success of one Smart City in one country to another country without proper understanding the priorities of the citizens due to the ethnicity and maturity of the city inhabitants.

No doubt, we need the masterplan for Smart Cities. A blueprint that lay the framework and the timeframe which is essential in measuring the success of any projects. But then, blueprints can be useless if there is no element of funding and the right business models in place. Most Smart Cities projects are delayed or canceled due to lack of financing from both parties (government and private entities).

To avoid such issues, let’s use the “lean methodology” in developing Smart Cities. The key element is the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), or in this case, we might call it “Minimum Viable City.” Here’re the steps:

1. Develop a hypothesis by getting citizens inputs. Provide the citizen with tools that allow them to engage with the government or city authorities.
2. Collect the data and analyze the citizen’s priorities
3. Build the “Minimum Viable City” Smart Applications
4. Measure the impact and usefulness.
5. Learn from the citizens whether their pain points are adequately addressed. Iterate the process again.
6. Scale up the deployment.

Think Big Start Small

“Think Big Start Small” – that’s how we should build our Smart Cities without putting so many resources. But to implement this – we need funding from the Government. In Malaysia, I would suggest MOSTI, MCMC, MDEC, MIGHT or Cyberview allocate some funds to create many Proof-of-Concept (PoC) projects in various cities. That’s one of the ways to spur the local innovation within the country.

What’re your thoughts?

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.