Transformation of developing cities to smart cities constraints and potential

I originally wrote this article in 2017, it was kept in my laptop till couple of days ago. By accident I found a note in my 2017 notebook which was related to this article, so here we are I decided to publish it. However, for data privacy issues I had to rearticulate some parts.

Summary:

Smart cities combine diverse technologies to reduce their environmental impact and offer citizens a better lifestyle. This is not, however, simply a technical challenge. Organizational change in governments - and indeed society at large - is just as essential. Making a city smart is therefore a very multidisciplinary challenge, bringing together city officials, innovative suppliers, national and policymakers, academics and civil society. In this article I reflect on ten years of work in technology capacity building. The article discusses the constraints that might limit transforming a developing city to a smart city.

Introduction:

There is no a standardized or a commonly accepted definition or a set of terminologies for what we call a "smart city". In 2014, an International Telecommunication Union report analyzed over 100 definitions related to smart cities (ITU, 2014) , and the following definition was the outcome of this analysis: “A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses ICTs and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social and environmental aspects.”

The idea of developing a city to a smart city is recently started to be promoted among different communities starting from west to east. For some communities it means IoTs, AI, integrated management of operations and Technology resilience. However for developing countries trying to catch the smart cities leap, most of the cities are still trying to achieve access to basic needs as water, shelter, food, improved living conditions, education, health and economic growth. When it comes to the Arab World Egypt started to hold events and conferences talking about smart cities and how smart cities can be developed with not less than 5 events discussed this transformation on 2017. Saudi Arabia held the "Smart Cities conference" on May 2017, while announced on October 2017 the city of “Neom” stretching across the borders of northwest Saudi Arabia into Jordan and Egypt. Neom is designed to operate as an independent economic trade zone with its own laws, and supposed to become the first private business zone to span three countries. Saudi Arabia will pump $500 billion (￡382 billion) from its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, into nine key investment sectors in the city: energy and water, mobility, biotech, food, technological and digital sciences, advanced manufacturing, media, and entertainment. On the same month UAE announced a new Ministry for Artificial Intelligence as a significant that AI is the future, which UAE is interested to lead. Those different initiatives everywhere in the world are a reflection of the high need of different countries to reach sustainability, and to enhance the future of their future generations. According to a United Nations University research project which ended on February 2016, smart cities have a lot of potential for the circumstances of many developing countries but this potential is not being fully utilized, and a number of structural factors could actually widen the gap between the potential and reality. For instance, in terms of research capacity, only 12% of the most published smart cities researchers are from developing countries. In terms of policy capacity, only 8% from the smart cities policy organizations are based in developing countries. Weak research capacity can hinder the contextualization required for smart cities initiatives. Lack of indigenous policy organizations means that developing countries tend to adopt policy frameworks provided by and tested in developed countries, which may not be optimal, or even desirable for their own circumstances (United Nations University Projects, 2016).

Increasing the investment in Technology

On developing a smart city, Technology is considered a main factor, as a result the minds behind a certain technology are highly needed and Technology Capacity Building (TCB) becomes essential. However when it comes to developing countries there are important factors that should be considered on designing a TCB program. In a draft partnership proposal endorsed by participants in the Synthesis Workshop on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development (2002, Mexico City), the proposal concluded the main factors facing developing countries to achieve sustainable development while highlighted the challenges facing TCB practices in developing countries, like lack of “National Investment”, “Brain Drain”, and “Building S&T capacity for Sustainable Development”. In the following lines I am trying to reflect on those factors based on my career journey observations as an entrepreneur with focus on TCB;

1- Lack of funding resources, the lack of funding is an important challenge, in the following points I am just featuring the surface of that challenge:

**Most of the available funding opportunities focus on transforming ideas to products. However when skilled candidates who can apply for funding are few and limited that might lead to consuming funding resources and missing the target from those funding programs.

** The available funding resources don’t focus on building the skills needed to prepare a pool of candidates who could come up with ideas that eventually could be turned into products. I argue that the education system is a key player in this problem, as most of the educational systems depend on instructionism and standards instead of embracing openness and diversity. As a result more funding is available for “Idea to Product” programs than “Skills to Idea” programs. According to (Bankole- Oni, 1999) technology is not necessarily hardware, but it is the totality of knowledge and skills embodied in people and institutions which provide them with mastery over their natural environment. The role of capacity building in this context therefore is to harness the capabilities within the network of institutions and enhance organizational interactions to better manage the process of technology acquisition, diffusion, utilization and skill development. The investment in “Skills to Idea” programs builds Science and Technology (S&T) capacity for Sustainable Development which is a more formidable challenge than just building S&T capacity without considering the long term consequences. In other words it implies building a capacity for integrated, problem-driven research on highly complex situations. For example taking Internet of Things “IoT” as one of the hot topics related to smart cities, before investing in devices and equipment the following question need to be addressed by the decision maker which is: How can we transform “IoT” into industry with *critical mass that can help in that transformation?

*Note: Critical mass here means that the number of people that can help in the transformation and beyond need to be addressed.

** Absence of institutional cooperation and effective coordination. According to (Bankole Oni, 1999) the policy environment for TCB should be multisectoral involving government, universities, research centers, the private sector and other stake holders. This is important in any political environment that is characterized by social and political heterogeneity.

** In some communities CSR in the private sector lacks understanding of sustainability. The old philanthropy practices but under different names are still used. In some communities unless the government shows intentions in investing in TCB, banks and big enterprises CSR and sustainability departments keep focusing on building traditional houses for poor areas or providing blankets instead of investing in TCB in poor areas. That keeps a developing community in the developing cycle as financial resources are directed to the effect and not to the cause.

2- Brain drain

The shortage of innovative and diverse S&T systems in some countries leaves those countries in the same trap and encourages talented youth to find better opportunities in a another country for the following reasons:

**The infrastructure is inadequate for studying and training for scientists and engineers. In addition to the lack of labs and practical studies while relying on theoretical studies.

** High funding amount is allocated by NGOs and governments to train good students in another country without conditions of returning back. Not to mention the lack of systems that can sustain those students after their training.

3- Building S&T capacity for sustainable development:

For a smart city to be successful in its endeavors, skills need to be addressed to ensure that all the different facets of the city are adequately and efficiently sustained. In other words focusing on people, not only smart technology is essential (UNCTAD, 2016). For example efforts and resources were directed for years to bring tablets to each student or digitize the information in different countries, however, there are few schools that have access to robot or electronics labs that are essential to generate Robot and AI calibers.

Conclusion:

Smart cities are considered an open invitation to transform developing communities. However most of the research work and directions need to address "how to focus on the people running the city" instead of only addressing "how to use technology in a smart city?" That way building generations familiar with technology and capable to develop and improve those cities in the long run could be maintained.

References

Bankole Oni, 1999. A Frame Work for Technological Capacity Building in Nigeria: Lessons from Developed Countries. Univeristat Bremen.

Draft partnership proposal endorsed by participants in the Synthesis Workshop on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development (20-23 May 2002, Mexico City). Capacity Building in Science and Technology. PrepCom IV meeting of the WSSD.

Fanny Klett, Minhong Wang, 2014. Smart cities of the future: Creating tomorrow’s education toward effective skills and career development today. Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal (KM&EL), Vol 6, No 4.

International Telecommunication Union, 2014. Smart sustainable cities: An analysis of definitions. Focus Group Technical Report. URL: https://www.itu.int/en/ITUT/focusgroups/ssc/Pages/default.aspx (accessed on November 2017)

New Data Reveal a Learning Crisis that Threatens Development Around the World. URL:

https://uis.unesco.org/en/blog/new-data-reveal-learning-crisis-threatens-development-around-world (accessed on November 2017)

United Nations University. Smart Cities for Sustainable Development. URL: https://unu.edu/projects/smart-cities-for-sustainable-development.html (accessed on November 2017)

United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2016. Smart Cities and Infrastructure. Secretary General Report. URL: https://unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/ecn162016d2_en.pdf (accessed on November 2017)