On World Cities Day, the Global Cities Hub was delighted to cooperate with ITU to organize the webinar “Celebrating World Cities Day and Shaping Urban Futures” which contributed to promoting the concept of people-oriented smart cities.
Speakers agreed that smart cities should prioritize the well-being and needs of their residents, therefore smart city leaders should choose the right technology for the right mission. While it is a challenge to keep concentrating on the people and resist the siren’s song of technology, we need to find a mindful matching of technology’s offers and citizens’ real needs. This is the only successful and sustainable way forward.
The discussion proved the importance ofunderstanding the complexity and layers of smartness: people, economy, infrastructure, and governance.
An excellent line of speakers presented examples of best practices of developing smart city functions and systems to help local governments to perform more efficiently, to provide citizens with the possibility to interact with the city administration, to serve the local community by providing better services.
In our opening remarks GCH emphasized that systems and services should be designed around user needs at the local level because people commonly get most of their services locally. Discussions with IOs should help to find balanced technology-driven processes and people-centered approaches.
International organizations should take their fair share identifying and promoting best practices. When international regulations are created LRGs should be formally consulted on policy, and the expertise of those in public service delivery need to be designed-in. A human rights-based framework is a useful tool to mitigate the risks while advancing the development of a smart city leaving no one behind.
Director Seizo Onoe of ITU set the tone by explaining that digital transformation is crucial for sustainable urban development. We need to make informed decisions today to improve the service delivery of tomorrow.
Dr. Okan Geray, chair of the ITU U4SSC emphasized the critical role that cities play in shaping the future of our planet. He reminded us of that smartness, sustainability, inclusivity and resilience should be treated in a holistic manner to enable future generations to thrive in urban environments.
Mayor Ivica Puljak presented a variety of smart solutions to manage the city of Split more efficiently and to provide a user-friendly digital interface for the citizens to interact with the city administration. From local municipal app to the solar potential of each building roof, from one of the biggest European bike-sharing system to data on tree canopy, these tools help to see the development of the city in a holistic data-driven manner. He can imagine a smart city which predicts every morning – based on past data sets and real time information – what will most probably happen in the city on that day.
Alexandre Bosshard shared with the audience a special policy management tool from Pully, based on ITU U4SSC KPIs. The Project Management Competence Center assists politicians in implementing the legislative program for the 5-year period and help citizens to follow the project implementation processes in the different areas. Several of the current 185 projects in progress concern access to water and sanitation. Publicly available KPIs are valuable tools measure progress and help future decision-making.
Director Teppo Rantanen underlined the importance of finding the right combination of use of data and AI on one hand and creating the necessary governance structure to protect the users to build a smart city without digital divide. The local government in Tampere provides lot of open historic data and also predicts flows with 90% accuracy which becomes a valuable set of information for residents, local businesses and relevant authorities. It can serve the business community to develop their services as well as law enforcement to keep streets safe and secure. The plethora of possibilities is endless.
Cristina Bueti, ITU Focal Point on Smart Sustainable Cities elaborated on the regulatory work and collaborations by ITU. We must make sure that digital technology becomes accessible for all and useful for the community, without creating new social divides. Sustainability aspects and the environmental impact cannot be overlooked. The relevant International Organizations, namely ITU, pay special attention to keeping these aspects in mind and include LRGs in the development process of internal standards of people-oriented smart cities. Answering to questions she also enumerated several capacity building tools ITU provides for different stakeholder groups.
Concluding the webinar Wendy Teresa Goico Campagna, Counsellor of the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic and Vice-chair of U4SSC recalled how innovative approaches presented by the speakers can transform urban spaces into thriving environments. Our cities are vibrant ecosystems that require our attention and care. The future of our cities and communities depends on our collective efforts and commitments.
The GCH has organized several exchanges in the past with UN Habitat, OHCHR and most importantly with ITU, such as the Smart City Leaders’ Talk earlier this year. This webinar on how to shape urban futures was especially interesting because it ignited a discussion around concrete solutions with the participation of all three levels of governance: local, national and international.
The GCH is convinced of the need to provide further space to Local and Regional Governments in general and Smart City Leaders in particular to give rise to a more inclusive multilateralism and better access to digitalization for everyone, everywhere. We are persuaded that together we can make a real difference.