FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
GITEX TALKS
People-centric
smart city
approach
The new model of smart cities
is collaborative co-creation
amongst all stakeholders
including citizens.
Jorge Saraiva is Vice President Europe for DigitalTown.
Overview
Thinking of smart cities as an urban
development vision that uses technology
to more effectively manage a city’s
assets is not only a myopic vision, but
fundamentally wrong. This is because
it treats as an asset the essential part of
the city, which is people. People are the
true engine of paradigm shifting and
smart cities require a new way of design
thinking. This new model of city design is
not top-down nor bottom-up. It is above
all a collaborative way of co-creation
among all stakeholders. Having this in
mind, most smart city paradigms and
priorities change.
As we delve deeper into the search for
solutions centred on people, we discover
that magical factor directly correlated
with economic development and quality
of life, happiness. Happiness is not a nice
to have but a must have, when the goal
is to position the city in the right and
sustainable track for future development.
The whole concept of city design changes
when the goal is to set a happy ecosystem
focus on people.
Key takeaways
The world is experiencing a paradigm
shift from industrial to knowledge. It is
a dramatic change for cities, economies
and societies. For some it is a future
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shock and for others it is the opportunity
to re-imagine and build a better world.
In the knowledge era, people are the
driver towards new paradigm and share
a common interest, which is happiness.
Cities and technologies must be designed
to connect people making them happier.
People will build and improve the cities
and its technologies, but do not offer
solutions, instead offer cooperative
platforms. Focus on people’s aspirations
and the reverse engineering required.
Relevance to Middle East
The global factors shaping the world
economic outlook for 2017 will be reflected
in the outlook for the Middle East. Growth
is gaining momentum for next couple of
years but the outlook for the oil market
is also uncertain. These conditions are
suitable to start planning a new economic
alternative for the region. Cities like Dubai
stand out as a notable example of taking
actual momentum to set a new paradigm
and mission for the region. Being the
happiest city in the world by 2019 clearly
demonstrate a new paradigm and embrace
a new social and economic model as
engine for progress.
Dubai have brilliantly defined the why?
Having said that, we need to highlight
the example of Dubai to remaining cities
and regional enterprises but focus on the
how? How to make a happy city? How to
set a fertile ground for people in the region
to prosper and how to digitalise such
ecosystem to provide scale to succeed in
the new era? Part of the goal is to start a
dialogue to co-create those solutions. Gitex
2017 may be the starting point for a digital
transformation of the region improving
quality of living of its inhabitants.
Relevance to Africa
There are many voices and experts
advising Africa to start its Industrial
Revolution. It is true that Africa is
confronting a triple challenge: create
millions of decent jobs, protect
the environment, and increase the
productivity. But is also true that Africa
have immense human and natural
resources. Africa’s Industrialisation
strategy may not be the only viable
economic path though.
There are alternatives to job creation
like entrepreneurial ecosystems and
cooperativism. A digital transformation
of the local businesses integrated on
a city or region as umbrella branding
may provide the continent the chance to
adopt and test new economic paradigms
in a much more efficient way than
other countries, where their industrial
heritage is too heavy that is slowing down
advances into new era.
Issue 11
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS