South Africa is struggling to develop smart cities because the private and public sectors are driven by conflicting policies.
So says Musa Nkosi, executive director of BWired, who attended the recently ended Smart Cities Summit, in Durban.
Among the challenges SA is facing in developing smart cities, says Nkosi, is that the private sector's view of smart cities is primarily driven by reaching profit margins, while government is driving a social agenda.
Access to capital is another major challenge, especially when dealing with innovation, which is key to developing smart cities, Nkosi adds.
“Government and the private sector need to join forces to create sustainable funding options that can be used to roll out infrastructure, focusing as well on underserviced areas,” Nkosi says.
“We are of the view that once you have the infrastructure and applications readily available, you will have to run a skills development programme to upskill citizens on how to take advantage of living in a smart city and unleash its full potential.”
Massive urbanisation
The three-day summit heard that, by 2050, more than 80% of SA's population will live in cities, thus the challenges presented by the rapid population growth demand that cities transform.
Power utility Eskom also highlighted its energy plans and how it will increase production with minimal impact on the environment, Nkosi says.
“There were interesting discussions around economic development in cities and how, among other things, broadband should be used to attract investments, as it can significantly reduce the cost of telecommunication.”
In order to become a smart city, Nkosi points out that a city needs to innovative. “By that we mean they have to fully utilise and have easy access to technology. There has to be a solid foundation on information-centric philosophy.”
He explains that the ease-of-use and accessibility to ICT services can be used to achieve this status because ICT has the ability to transform any organisation from the bottom up and engage citizens on e-governance issues.
Once the infrastructure foundation has been laid, Nkosi elaborates, a city can become progressive in the sense that it can improve its communication with its citizens.
He also believes that information sharing is another element that drives cities to become smarter, as it can articulate its programmes easier to its citizens; in turn, people of the city can voice their opinions so that there is great alignment between the two.
“There also has to be various other smart programmes that can be rolled out, which can include reduction of carbon footprints, smart recycling methodologies, smart energy usage, intelligent transport systems, e-learning and more.”
Leading smart cities
Nkosi says some elements of these concepts have been implemented in various cities around the world, especially in Europe, in the city of Amsterdam, where the entire city has a fibre backbone network that is used to provide businesses with quality communication platforms.
“In the city of Amsterdam, the easily accessible last mile solution of WiFi that has been rolled out is being used by citizens to communicate back with the metropolitan council. They have also rolled out intelligent transport systems that inform citizens, among other things, the schedules of public transport, buses and trains. If there are accidents on the motorways, information is disseminated almost immediately to inform them of alternative routes.”
The city of Stockholm, in Sweden, is another case in point. It has created almost a second industry where the wholesale infrastructure for broadband is literally governed at a local level, Nkosi adds.
“This means all telecommunication operators get the same service for the same price and where they compete is at a services layer to the consumer level.
“This model makes every operator very creative and innovative in order to get more people to use their services, which is currently lacking in SA. We are still competing at an infrastructure level, which, in turn, does not drive the uptake of services.”
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