The City of Johannesburg is using ICT to improve its global competitiveness as SA's economic hub.
So said councillor Ruby Mathang, Johannesburg's MMC for economic development, in an interview with ITWeb.
According to Mathang, the city is closer to becoming a smart city following the implementation of intervention strategies like smart metering, an integrated intelligence centre, as well as the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project.
"A smart city is defined as a city with the capabilities and ability to use information and communication technologies to merge dimensions of smart utilities, smart mobility, smart economy, smart environment, smart education, smart people, smart living, smart health, smart planning and smart governance," said Mathang
Therefore, he added, the smart city concept brings together all the characteristics associated with organisational change, technological advancement, economic and social development and other dynamics of a modern city.
He added that the objective is for Johannesburg to become a smart city by providing services that are easy to access and use; while being efficient, responsive and transparent and ensuring financial sustainability and quality service delivery.
It is his belief that the City of Johannesburg's broadband network will be a driver of growth and development, and will provide opportunities to solve socio-economic inequalities.
"The aim of the project is to ensure the availability of affordable broadband connectivity throughout the city, which will support socio-economic development through accelerated growth, expanded productivity and enhanced quality of life for all."
He also explained that the city is establishing the project with the hope of lowering costs and increasing access to telecommunications services for residents in the city, thereby stimulating economic development and improving city service delivery.
On smart metering, Mathang said the city will provide residents with smart meters to address billing problems. Johannesburg's City Power is set to kick off a R1.2 billion project to roll out more than a million smart meters, in a bid to resolve ongoing issues around billing.
"This involves the installation of an intelligent meter at residential customers and the regular reading, processing and feedback of consumption data to the customer, Mathang said.
The key functionality will cover areas such as billing data collation and verification, revenue management, operational support and information to manage outages, maintenance and network upgrades, customer service information, integration methodologies to transfer data from and to legacy systems and load switching and control data, he added.
"The integrated intelligent centre for public safety will provide high quality data across law enforcement organisations for decision making and action by among other things leveraging advanced analytics in the area of predictive next actions or outcomes to prevent crimes and drive greater citizen safety," he concluded.
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