Need For Speed. How connectivity accelerates the development of cities
With the development of technologies new options for the use arise at the intersection of 5G, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. This combination creates the world of Intelligent Connectivity which has a positive impact on cities, people, industry, society and economy. For example, in the near future 5G will become the basis for development of urban projects in all fields of public life, from education and health care to transport industry and housing and public utilities. And unmanned vehicles will move using 5G while communicating with the surrounding infrastructure. All this accelerates the development of smart cities. How can interconnected devices change life in the city? How do they affect the creation of a comfortable modern urban environment and the development of the urban economy? What technologies do smart cities need? These questions were discussed by experts of 2019 Open Innovations forum.
Edwin Diender, Huawei Enterprise, Chief Digital Transformation Officer and Vice President
The majority of the world population eventually will live in urbanized areas or cities. I believe that would be digital urbanization and digital area because physically the infrastructure is not ready to cope with that. People will be more and more connected with a digital version of the city just like a digital version of physical economy makes sense. The idea of creating and working from digital twins that requires higher levels of connectivity is something we should think about.
Ecosystem is also something that we think is important to address. A platform and an ecosystem that develops and brings industries into acceleration process. What we need to do faster is to link different information silos from a process point of view. Try to be faster in the way we are able to connect different departments.
The need for speed with intelligent connectivity is looking at cities as platforms. Not technically or from a data-centered point of view but as a principle. A platform as a principle, a platform that is able to link different programmes and initiatives that will help an area of the city or even a complete nation move higher of the value change in a shorter time-frame.
Gert Jonk, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Senior Vice President growth Countries
You need to be a real partner in technology to the city. Every city in every part of the world has a different focus point. A couple of weeks ago I was in South Africa, they are still installing the infrastructure, the backbone of connectivity and on top of that they are suffering of people getting to be able to reach the emergency services. In many cities it is a commodity today but in other cities it doesn’t exist. There are different paces today. We have done many projects like this across the world today. We are very close to our cities and guiding them as a partner, and helping them, and developing the things that they need.
Paul Shetler, Austalian government, Former CDO
Back in 2015–2016 when smart cities hype was on its peak in Australia we had a thing called National Innovation and Science Agenda. It was an attempt to fund and sort of kick start the whole bunch of initiatives in innovation. 15 million dollars was pledged to cities around Australia. But the ministry was abolished and we don’t have national smart cities programme anymore. There are probably many reasons for that. There was a lot of hype in Australia.
