IDECS PANEL SESSION ON SMART CITIES - ALIGNING CITIZEN NEEDS AND ENGAGEMENT (17 October 2024)

INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL ECONOMY CONFERENCE SARAWAK (IDECS) 2024 (17 OCTOBER 2024)?– Participated at the recent Panel Session on Smart Cities - Aligning Citizen Needs and Engagement. Session was skillfully moderated by Minda James of Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation and he has posed 5 impactful questions. Sharing here my views :

Q1 :?WHAT ARE SOME OF THE?CHALLENGES?THAT CITIES FACE WHEN TRYING TO ENGAGE CITIZENS IN THE PLANNING PROCESS ? …..VIEWS :?

·??????As in any nation-building effort, there is the 3Ps – Policy, Program & Projects

·??????Often Program Management is the gap to align, synergise and synchronize multiple downstream projects to meet the policy aspirations.

·??????Program level is the soft landing pad for key stakeholders to establish trust??& relationship amongst themselves.

·??????Establishing trust need to be in a neutral environment such as Innovation Hubs.

·??????Such platform will be catalyst for public-private partnerships (PPP).

Q2 :?WHAT ROLE DO YOU THINK?PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS?PLAY IN ASEAN’S EFFORTS TO ACCELERATE SMART CITY DEVELOPMENT TO ADDRESS CITIZEN NEEDS ? …..VIEWS :

·??????From observations, the medium term and program based approach need to be strengthened amongst the ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) cities .

·??????PPP is best nurtured at Program level.

·??????ASCN cities mainly focus on projects.

·??????With program approach, it will enable peer review & more coordinated private investments amongst ASCN cities.

·??????3 Scenario on City needs : Daily Services, Incidents/Accidents support and disaster/crisis response & recovery.

Q3 :?HOW CAN CITIES?BALANCE?THE NEED FOR INNOVATION WITH CONCERNS ABOUT PRIVACY AND DATA SECURITY? …..VIEWS :

·??????Balancing act can be managed through the Internal and Open Data Guidelines as guiding documents for smart city delivery and aligning various stakeholders.

·??????National Sandbox should also focus on Non-Tech aspect on Regulations as some government guideline require the use of Govt. funded systems and limit the use of new and improved tech innovations by private sectors.

·??????Smart City is both cloud and data game.

·??????Therefore, Government procurement should focus on OPEX based, instead of CAPEX.

·??????Benefit 1 -??CAPEX, technology and service levels risks undertaken by private sectors (these investments propel digital economy in cities).

·???????Benefit 2 -??Government can deliver more with cheaper and faster??to citizen through OPEX based funding.

Q4 : WHAT IS YOUR?VISION?FOR THE IDEAL HUMAN-CENTRIC SMART CITY IN THE NEXT DECADE? …..VIEWS :

·??????3 Scenario in future : P2P – People to People, P2M – People to Machine & M2M – Machine to Machine.

·??????P2P – Strengthened ethics, trustworthiness & collaboration.

·??????P2M – Rationalised people & machine roles/interaction, for example with AI as current game changer.

·??????M2M -??Integrated and connected systems to deepen inter-operability in city operations and services to citizen.

Q5 : HOW CAN CITIES CONTINUE TO?PRIORITIZE?CITIZEN NEEDS WHILE ADDRESSING KEY CHALLENGES LIKE SUSTAINABILITY, PRIVACY, AND INCLUSIVITY? …..VIEWS :

·??????Have Clear mind & driven towards the aspired outcomes.

·??????Have urgency in mind, need to be less ‘what ifs’ scenario & have more positivities with strengthen beliefs.?

·??????As Non Arkara shared at IDECS, it is ok to fail forward as long as we are progressing.