The ieee smart cities initiative — accelerating the smartification process for the 21st century cities [point of view]

SECTION I.

Introduction

The IEEE Smart City Initiative was created in 2013 to develop a worldwide network of cities, sharing their experience and organizing knowledge dissemination in their respective ecosystems. After more than three years, almost 15 cities joined the five core cities, creating a vibrant network of people, keen on producing and sharing knowledge, organizing events, and spreading the smart cities' culture around the world.

As the population that will live in urban areas is ecpected to double by 2050, especially on the African continent, cities will have to deal with much more than just an optimization of their organization, their infrastructure, and the services they provide to their citizens. Facing an unknown future, disruptive innovation will be needed to improve traditional incremental development of existing solutions. A holistic approach integrating technological, societal, and political dimensions is necessary, leading to associating all the stakeholders of a complex living area: city users, multilevel governance, and urban service providers. New commons, such as open data, are required to create a value, not limited to a financial value, but other types of value creation: public, societal, education, healthcare, among others. Standards, metrics, and methodological frameworks, associated with technologies, will allow reproducibility, dissemination, traction, and acceleration, from results gained by pioneering metropoles, regions, and countries.

The IEEE motto “Advancing Technology for Humanity” reminds the technology community and the world that IEEE stands at the forefront of technological change for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative was organized in 2013, to create a worldwide network of cities, each one building a local ecosystem of governance bodies, universities, entrepreneurs and industries, and local IEEE volunteers.

Five core cities (Guadalajara, Mexico; Trento, Italy; Wuxi, China; Kansas City, USA; and Casablanca, Morocco) were selected during the first two years, and many other cities were affiliated in with the Initiative. Some subcommittees were created to focus on specific areas such as standards.

This article presents achievements and planned actions of each core city. These accomplishments include working groups, student support, white papers, massive open online courses (MOOCs), conferences, use cases, etc.

After three years of incubation, the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative is now engaging in a new acceleration phase, thanks to the support of IEEE societies and affiliated cities that are developing new types of activities and that are federating a subcontinental network to create new dynamics.

The goals now are to continue the development of the IEEE network of cities, or even city clusters or regions.

Thanks to their knowledge and the lessons learned, the experts of the network will be able to share their experience with others. Also, such experiences will capitalize on past results, paving the way for the development of methodological frameworks and future standards. The IEEE Smart Cities Initiative will find the best ways to implement the results of advanced research pragmatically by incorporating technological and human sciences, resulting in disruptive solutions, customized to the particular needs and requirements of each particular city on the five continents.

SECTION II.

Core and Affiliated Cities

A. Guadalajara, Mexico—The Creative Digital City

Guadalajara City (GDL) is the second largest city in population in Mexico with 4.6 million residents, located at 600 km to the north of Mexico City. GDL has a mature and robust integrated ecosystem composed of more than 600 high-tech companies, 280 000 students at 20 universities, the government with a strong focus on social innovation and entrepreneurial activities as well as nonprofit organizations such as the IEEE with a competitive track of collaboration. In 2012, GDL started the smart cities project called the “Ciudad Creativa Digital” (CCD) looking to reconfigure the downtown of GDL as a smart city, designed by Carlo Ratti from the MIT Senseable Lab [1]. In July 2013, as a city that faces challenges of fast urbanization, Guadalajara was selected by the IEEE to be the pilot city, which shared its experiences with IEEE members through the Smart Cities Initiative (SCI) incubated at the Future Directions Committee [2].

The first achievement was the kickoff meeting in October 2013 with more than 120 participants. This event connected IEEE worldwide experts in education, IoT, computer networks, sensors, cloud, and societal impact of technology on the local ecosystem. It helped to define a roadmap to boost the GDL smart city deployment roadmap with the IEEE in six working group areas: infrastructure, IoT, open data framework, analytics and visualization, metrics, and education for smart cities. As an immediate result, continuous work of volunteers produced 17 white papers up until 2015. Regarding education and talent, the impact from the IEEE was the commitment of the University of Guadalajara (UDG) to create the Smart Cities Innovation Center SCIC in March 2014. The SCIC is committed to supporting talent development in smart cities and helping to develop MOOCs and conferences, and foster collaboration with other emerging IEEE SCI core cities, such as Trento, Wuxi, Casablanca, and Kansas City [3].

The second achievement was the IEEE’s support to launch the first International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2) in October 2015 with 500 participants from 150 countries and integrating a Smart Cities Hackathon to expose local talent to conference participants [4]. Since the first IEEE ISC2, GDL shifted from white papers to produce representative papers for the ISC2 conference with a total of 14 contributions presented and discussed at ISC2 with further editions available on IEEE Xplore. Also, in 2016, GDL produced and offered the first MOOC in metrics for smart cities with more than 6000 participants [9]. Today, the GDL smart city and UDG are hosting students from Latin America, the United States, and Europe wanting to develop smart city projects with local impact, and are looking to connect their experiences with the IEEE and participate in its international events.

B. Trento, Italy—Quality of Life in Mid-Sized Cities

Trento is a mid-sized Italian city nestled in the Adige River valley, which drains the southern Dolomite Mountains (recently recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Site) and forms a natural gateway between northern Italy and the rest of Europe [6]. Trento is consistently recognized in Italy for its enviable quality of life, as well as for the quality of research at its university and research centers. Two major distinctive features of the smart city are:

• a strictly linked ecosystem formed by its university, research centers, and local companies that leverage a shared knowledge-based vision and a strong commitment of public bodies;
• robust cohesive relationships that foster a strong citizen engagement and the extension of the “smart communities” paradigm to the whole mountainous territory of the Trento Province.

In July 2014, Trento was selected to join Guadalajara, Mexico, and Wuxi, China, as the first three IEEE core smart cities.

The city’s inaugural IEEE Smart City workshop, organized in December 2014, focalized Trento’s smart initiatives on six main areas:

• big data and open data;
• energy systems;
• fostering smart mobility for mid-sized cities;
• innovative tourism services;
• smart citizens for healthy cities and e-government.

Trento’s thinking and advancements in these six areas are addressed in six published white papers [7]. Trento’s plan and activities were later presented during the Trento Smart City Week event, which was organized when the city hosted the IEEE Second International Smart Cities Conference in mid-September 2016 [8]. The motto of the city was “Quality of life, active and aware engagement of citizens” (Qualità della vita e impegno attivo e consapevole dei cittadini).

Public seminars and academic courses were also organized, which involved Master and Ph.D. level students. Two MOOCs devoted to the selected topics were developed: “Big Data for Smart Cities“ and “Networks for Smart Urban Spaces” [9]. Moreover, IEEE volunteers in Trento organized two editions of the IEEE School on Future Energy Systems, in 2015 [10] and 2016 [11], and the IEEE European Summer School on Smart Cities in 2017 [12]. In order to promote a continuous engagement of citizens, in 2018, Trento is organizing the second edition of the Trento Smart City Week [13]. Thanks to the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative, Trento is well on the way of continuous improvement of urban life quality, public services, economic prosperity, and sustainable development.

C. Wuxi, China—The Internet-of-Things City

Wuxi is a mid-sized Chinese city nestled in the area of Yangtze River, located between Shanghai and Nanjing. Transforming into a smart city is a key strategy for Wuxi’s goal of creating a sustainable city and healthy communities [14].

Leveraging ICT has been a critical focus for Wuxi since 2007 when it was announced that the city would build a sensor center of excellence for China. Two years later, the creation of a state-level demonstration zone of sensor networks was approved. It now has an approved development plan that spans from 2012 to 2020 [14].

In July 2014, Wuxi was selected to join Guadalajara, Mexico and Trento, Italy as the third IEEE core smart city.

The city’s inaugural IEEE Smart City Workshop was held in May 2015, in conjunction with the International Workshop on Internet of Things (IoT), which was very much a key component of Wuxi’s smart city efforts in 2015. Wuxi’s plan and progress on smart city features are addressed in the published white papers and Wuxi’s municipal government R&D plan [15], [16]. Wuxi owns the world’s fastest digital supercomputer as the infrastructure of the smart city. The annual event of Wuxi’s World Exhibition of IoT (WIOT) became a snapshot of the progress of the Wuxi smart city, and attracted 150 000 visitors during the four-day exhibition in 2017 when the city hosted the IEEE Third International Smart Cities Conference [17][18]–[19]. Wuxi’s approach to become a smart city is to take a scientific outlook on development, with the motto “Charming Wuxi, Innovative Wuxi’s, Pioneering Wuxi, and Happy Wuxi” as a construction theme [14]. Many projects on smart cities are financially supported by the Wuxi's municipal government annually, covering almost all aspects of smart city construction. Ten typical cases of IoT application in the Wuxi smart city have been selected annually since 2010, and a book has been published (in Chinese) on those typical cases from 2013 to 2016 [18].

Public seminars and academic courses were also organized, which involved Master and Ph.D. level students, mainly from Jiangnan University, a national university located in Wuxi. MOOCs devoted to the selected topics are being developed, and the topics include introduction to a smart city, pattern recognition for a smart city, and optimization techniques for a smart city.

Moreover, IEEE volunteers, staff members of Jiangnan, and government officials in Wuxi contributed a lot to academic exchange, and many conferences or workshops have been held in Wuxi since its connection with the IEEE Smart Cities Initiatives [19][20][21]–[22]. Partly because of the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative, Wuxi is well on the way to be a smart city and has been named number 1 in the national smart city evaluation of China. The GDP of Wuxi has surpassed a trillion RBM yuan in 2017, while IoT industry is one of the leading industries of Wuxi.

D. Kansas City, USA—The Smart City 3.0

Kansas City joined the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative in fall 2015 as the fourth core smart city, to build upon the work done by the initial cohort. Kansas City was recognized at that time as an example of “Smart Cities 3.0” by the leading smart city scholar Boyd Cohen, who defined version 3.0 as cities “beginning to embrace citizen co-creation models for helping to drive the next generation of smarter cities” [23]. This orientation was reflected in the areas of focus identified as we joined the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative. Alongside the traditional city-system focus areas of mobility and public safety, it was committed to deepening our understanding of human interaction with emerging technology systems by including education and entrepreneurship as key focus areas. Finally, it focused on regionalism as a lens through which we view these sociotechnical systems.

Kansas City’s smart city evolution has been marked by an interest in balancing the friction, grit, and inherent messiness that accompany rapid change and serve as the grist for innovation with efficiency that accompanies a systematic approach [24]. During the IEEE Smart Cities Kickoff Workshop in February 2016, built infrastructure was looked at as a new kind of geography for cities, with our built networks (electric grid, fiber, roads) serving in an analogous base for the rivers, mountains, and natural resources of the premodern world. Data and data systems have also begun to be explored not just as an emerging natural resource, but also as a type of infrastructure in and of itself [25]. These ideas will continue to be developed as Kansas City will host the 4th IEEE International Smart Cities Conference on September 16–19, 2018, with the theme “A system approach for smarter communities” [26]. The IEEE has been a valuable addition to Kansas City’s roster of smart city networks by providing a truly international framework and a mechanism to engage the local community of professional engineers.

E. Casablanca, Morocco—Frugal Inclusive Collaborative Smart City

Casablanca is the economic heart of Morocco. The region of Casablanca-Settat contributed 48.1% of the country’s GDP in 2015 [27]. The city is also facing major challenges such as mobility, waste management, urbanization, rural exodus, etc., which need to be tackled at an affordable rate. The “Frugal Inclusive Collaborative Smart City” (FICSCity) concept we have proposed for Casablanca and cities in Africa and developing countries [28]–[29][30][31][32] puts citizens at the center of the city transformation process as key actors and builders of their smart city. It aims at reconciling citizens with their “city state” and society, making them feel like the “agora” of the city and citizens with rights and duties. It also aims at limiting investment risks by adopting a cost-effective or frugal “bottom-up” approach in line with work that increases the attractiveness of the city of Casablanca led by the authorities and the University of Hassan II Casablanca/GreenTIC [33]–[34][35][36]. Casablanca FICSCity concept pillars are as follows:

• citizens-driven bottom-up approach aligned with participatory-based city strategic vision;
• education for all and capacity building programs and dedicated funding;
• citizens’ appropriation of SC projects using participatory incentive models, public–private–people partnership (4P), and quick-win projects with high RoI for citizens;
• ICT and social media facilitated citizens’ empowerment and engagement as cogenerators of business opportunities and wealth;
• FICSCity R&D innovation in city living labs, open third places, and university–society alignment to tackle local needs through capitalizing on local resources;
• FICSCity law-making and implementation of new fair collaborative business models to engage new business actors (citizens, startups, etc.) and foster social cohesion.

Following this concept, many pilot projects have been initiated by the city authorities, universities, and other actors, but the most interesting actions, in the spirit of the proposed FICSCity concept, were the recent emergence of several citizens’ initiatives such as “Casa Citoyenne” and “Action Casa.” Indeed, citizens behind these initiatives, who first met via social media, shared problems and concerns of their city and decided to act to transform their city. These initiatives already count many collaborative actions oriented toward education and city cleaning coordinated in social media facilities and achieved spontaneously and collectively.

F. Affiliated Cities: The Natal Case

Besides the network of the IEEE core smart cities, other cities were affiliated with the Initiative, based mainly on the applications that were received during 2014 and 2015, which were very impressive. Those cities accepted to join the network to share their knowledge and activities. Some other cities such as Porto, Portugal or Tipas, Algeria are expected to join the network in the coming months. All of them have clear plans to become smarter and represent the diversity of problems and resources that can be found in cities and regions all over the world.

Among the 15 cities that joined, Natal, Brazil is a good example. Being very active within the incubation steering committee, the city decided to organize the First IEEE Summer School on Smart Cities that took place on August 6–11, 2017 [37]. For one week, the city has welcomed more than 100 registered attendees, including 23 graduate students, 46 undergraduate students, and 47 professionals (including professors and city representatives, most of them from Natal), and the attendees worked on 12 different use cases provided by the city of Natal [38].

SECTION III.

Conclusion: The Value Is in the Network

After more than three years of development, all the cities that have been active in the IEEE Smart Cities Initiative developed vibrant urban ecosystems. They have produced multiple pieces of knowledge, organized many local or international events, and empowered local actors: municipal governance bodies, academia, local industry, and IEEE volunteers.

The main impact was not only the creation of a network of cities but also the creation of a network of people, all of them deeply involved in the development of their own urban territory, and able to collaborate to solve issues or to organize world-class events such as the ISC2 conference series.

Thanks to the support of IEEE societies, let us continue to develop this network, which is the force powering the initiative. Let us keep it open, to be attractive to new cities, to gather new experts and volunteers, and to cooperate with other organizations aiming to reach the same goals.

L'articolo è stato pubblicato qui:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8326764/authors#authors