The city of Tshwane has been selected to receive an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant.
The challenge is a competitive grant programme in which IBM awards a total of $50 million worth of technology and services to 100 municipalities worldwide over the next three years
The grant also makes top IBM experts available to the city to analyse and recommend ways the city can become an even better place in which to live, work and play.
IBM selected cities which made the strongest case for participating in the Smarter Cities Challenge. During these engagements, the company's technical experts, researchers and consultants examine local issues and offer a range of options and recommended next-steps.
The IBM experts examine healthcare, education, safety, social services, transportation, communications, sustainability, budget management, energy, and utilities, among other issues.
Cities will also have access to a wide array of IBM resources including City Forward, an online tool which allows municipalities to analyse, compare and visualise data across systems.
"We selected the city of Tshwane because of its commitment to the use of data to make better decisions, and for its desire to explore and act on smarter solutions to their most pressing concerns," says Gavin Pieterse, governmental programmes executive, IBM.
"The cities we picked are eager to implement programmes that tangibly improve the quality of life in their areas, and to create roadmaps for other cities to follow. The stakes have never been greater but we're excited at the prospect of helping cities tackle the most pressing challenges of our time."
After studying the role that intelligent technology might play in uniting and advancing different aspects of city life, IBM then outlines a range of concrete strategies designed to help make cities more attractive to current and prospective residents and businesses.
A consistent theme in these projects is the collecting, sharing, analysing and acting on data generated by urban interactions and transactions. Such information can include everything from school test scores, smartphone adoption, crime statistics, and road traffic, to tax revenue and library usage.
Correlations that link seemingly unrelated aspects of urban life are then made to develop innovative and cost-effective strategies to address persistent challenges.
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