Our intervention in the most widely read English daily in Sri Lanka emphasizes the “smart” in smart cities. A middle option focuses on citizens moving through time and space in the city as the primary sensors. They generate the big data that when analyzed constitute the feedback that is the essence of a smart city. Experimentation and learning are integral to this low-cost approach. It is especially appropriate for the organically developed, congested cities in developing countries where the costs of installing and maintaining city-owned sensors would be quite high.
ITU have established a new study group titled “ITU-T Study Group 20: IoT and its applications, including smart cities and communities”. The decision to create this group was taken by Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) at its assembly at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva early this month. The Internet of Things (IOT) technologies are expected to connect an estimated 50 million devices to the network by 2020. The group will develop standards to take advantage of IoT technologies to address urban-development challenges. This will be done by standardizing architectures for IoT and developing mechanisms for interoperability of IoT applications used by numerous industrial sectors.
I had to read this op-ed that ran in a Nepal newspaper several times. The author, a former advisor to the former President of South Korea, believes that an application that picks up on fluctuations in Internet traffic to give people advance warning of 30 seconds to two minutes has relevance to post-quake Nepal. I was just wondering how the warning would be transmitted in a country where Internet access is not ubiquitous (according to latest ITU data Nepal had 13.3 Internet users per 100 people); and what one can actually do with 30 seconds to two minutes warning even if one had a computer, it was connected to the Internet and one was at the machine. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on ensuring buildings are built to code?
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)- The first smart city in India- is under construction at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The proposed city plan includes ICT enabled infrastructure such as smart grids and automated waste collection. India has allocated 60 billion rupees form its annual federal budget for this financial year towards developing smart cities. Going by numerous comments made by the vocal online population, there seem to be a certain amount of skepticism about the success of the planned city. Follow the link for more information on this in Reuters.