Disruptive Expo ‘17 Centers On Smart Cities, Citizens’ Participation

Some decades ago, the internet became a world-wide sensation, as people no longer wait for a post office, telegram, fax or physical libraries to send or receive information.

The society has been empowered to do so through the internet by email, social network, however, wow there is a growing need to achieve higher efficiency and productivity at little or no cost.

The concept entails ‘things’ need to connect to internet, to be monitored, controlled and for it to operate with less human interference.

“Anything from your home appliances, clothes, wrist-watch, footwear, office infrastructures, bags etc can be connected to the internet to be track, monitor, and accumulate data for learning or control. A good application of IoT could be in the health sector, where people’s Smart Watches, monitor and report the body vitals like body temperature, heart beats, pulses and feeds it back to your health provider’, said David Alozie, convener and founder of Disruptive Africa Expo/Community, while explaining the concept of Smart Cities during a press conference towards the forthcoming ‘Disruptive Expo’ 2017.

The conference, Alozie said, is conveyed for citizens to appreciate that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Smart Cities will play a huge role in accelerating achievements of the UN-SDG goals in Lagos/Nigeria.

According to him, it has become imperative for the every citizen become aware of the technology concepts in order to adequately plug into the opportunities that Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Smart Cities might present.

Smart Cities, he said involves, high level of population and urbanization; need for climate change and environmental sustainability and there is need to have more data to help the Government serve the people well, as well as the need to serve citizens better and promote citizen participation in the running of a city - Technology advancement and needs.

“Components of Smart Cities Smart Cities consist of the following Smart Sectors: - Smart Transportation: Optimising traffic, road, vehicular movements - Smart Security: Security camera, facial recognition, phone/citizen detection - Smart Energy, Water and Waste: Enhancing efficiency and management of power, water and waste. - Smart Government (e-Government): Enabling platform for better Government citizen interaction and services. - Smart Manufacturing - Smart Education - Smart Tourism and Leisure - Smart Buildings, Homes and Estates - Smart Retails and Logistics - Smart Finance and Banking Requirements for Smart Cities - Smart Citizens: Citizenship awareness of opportunities and participation - Revamping of Sectors to become smart: Homes, waste management, security water management, power management and efficiency.”

He further advised that States need blueprints, holistically led and implemented for Public and Private sector partnership and promotion of a data driven culture across the public and private sectors.

He said that benefits of Smart City are evident in cutting cost for the citizens and the Government, as it encourages better interaction and personalized interaction with the Government.

However, Alozie said there are inherent challenges of smart cities that concern the citizens, particularly “A shift in the labour market - Security and privacy concerns, scalability of crime - Building talents, skills and advanced knowledge to fuel up innovations and Smart Technology Solutions (STS). - Possible lack of even access to benefits of Smart Cities - Building reliable smart cities systems to reduce economic effects”.

On the opportunities, he said, “Looking at foreign exchange rate (forex), it’s an opportunity to promote home-grown knowledge and skills which will power the growth and development of Smart Cities from a technology point of view and thereby create jobs, more businesses and services.

“There is an opportunity for the Telecom industry, just like some Telecom companies in other countries are working with the government to run Smart Cities - Insurance companies to leverage the real time data to verify and validate claims - Access to open data to support your business product and services, predict and manage risk.

Also speaking, Mr. Reuben Kalu, head, Marketing and Key Leads, Syscomptech Communications Limited, said the Conference was designed to show that Smart cities concepts are not designed to be used and accessed by technology gurus only but everyday people.

He further cautioned that Smart Cities projects should not be seen as tools to take away people’s paid employment, rather a dawn of new business and job opportunities.

“Smart Cities are not ready made but it’s a journey and process that takes years. Just like we participate in politics voting for our leaders, so it is required that everyone participate in the building of Smart Cities in Lagos and Nigeria because Smart Cities will generate great volume and now the world is moving from seeing wealth as Oil or cash. In the Digital Economy, data have become the new wealth, it could be Personal Asset, Corporate Assets or National Asset,” he said.