Co-governing the Citiverse in a people-centred way

Speakers at the “Co-governing the Citiverse” webinar provided a virtual tour of multilateral processes and their main outcomes in the realm of smart cities, virtual worlds and AI, and the citiverse.

Following the opening remarks by Cristina Bueti of ITU and Graham Alabaster from UN-Habitat, the interventions explained the ongoing activities in three related workstreams – helping the audience discover how technological development, including the virtual worlds are transforming the way cities are designed, governed, and experienced. Cristina Bueti, Christina Yan Zhang and Okan Geray shared their vision on how public institutions may progress through their respective digital journeys.

Look at the recording if you have missed the live session.

ITU guides, frameworks and insights support cities to benefit from the capabilities of a smart city. U4SSC, a UN initiative led by ITU which encourages the use of digital technologies, facilitate digital transformation and ease the transition to smart sustainable cities. U4SSC thematic groups cover among others such important topics, as:

• Use of Artificial Intelligence in Cities
• Digital Public Infrastructure for Cities
• Enabling People-Centred Cities through Digital Transformation
• Future Foresight for Cities
• Social-cultural Sustainability in People-centred City Governance

The deployment of digital technology, and especially the creation of virtual worlds using AI leads us into a new era of urban development where systems become more autonomous. We can benefit from the increased capacity of these systems to build more inclusive and resilient cities and communities if we think together and translate it to public value.

All speakers of the Geneva Urban Debate agreed that technology is a tool to address humanity’s challenges. It is our responsibility to define the clear purpose of using it to advance human-centred development. Mayors and city officials need to make sure that the developments meet the local agenda and are relevant to people’s needs on the ground. Ideally, they are also aligned with global frameworks, such as the SDGs and with national development plans to maximize synergy.

As explained, the evolution of spatial computing enables us to create virtual worlds, such as the citiverse, where human-centric municipal services are easily accessible and easy to use. If developed properly they can contribute to reducing the cognitive gap as well.

However, citiverse is not an aim in itself. It is a totally new way of how we can address local issues. The community should decide on the key priorities and local leaders should take action to realize them. The different tools developed by international organizations, especially ITU and UN Habitat help assess where the city is and how to get where it wants to be.

Mayors are expected to offer a vision, a strategy, an implementation framework and take concrete steps. Embracing the new technology contribute to delivering results. Peer-to-peer dialogue can help overcome fear from the unknown. Initiatives by international organizations, such as the “Global Initiative on Virtual Worlds and AI – Discovering the Citiverse” help expedite the digital journey by avoiding the repetition of missteps and unnecessary reinventing of processes. Its evaluation and assessment track offers a pre-implementation checklist. A public consultation starts on 15 December before going live.