By 2050, city dwellers are expected to make up 70% of the earth’s total population and Africa has the opportunity to build intelligence into the infrastructure of its cities, says information technology services and solutions provider IBM chief technology officer for sub-Saharan Africa Clifford Foster.
“Africa has the opportunity to learn from the rest of the world’s mistakes and build ‘smartness’ and intelligence into its infrastructure. Cities are the microcosm of all the significant challenges and opportunities facing the planet,” he says.
There are a number of ways to infuse intelligence into cities and make them smarter. Smart telecommunication can enable cities to interconnect systems and lay the groundwork for longer-term economic growth. This includes smarter traffic systems, healthcare systems and food systems.
Foster says that smart transportation could improve transit experiences, reduce congestion and limit the effect of transport on the environment. Road user charging, electronic fare management and transportation information are examples of smart transportation in cities.
He points out that smart healthcare can provide opportunities to improve healthcare quality, accountability and sustainability. Health information exchanges can allow more time for treating current illnesses than the current system does, which is based on medical histories, and consumer portals can allow customers to proactively manage their own health.
Smart energy and utilities can provide opportunities to manage energy supply and demand smartly. Smart grids can detect and pre-empt problems and possibly reroute energy flow, and smart water management could detect water leakage and loss as well as contamination. Foster says that all buildings should also be built to consume energy better.
Further, cities can nurture their most valuable resources, their citizens, by using smart education, such as smart classrooms, which make remote educa- tion more interactive, and smart administration.
Citizens and communities can be protected by smart public safety systems that turn data into insight. Crime data aggregation, emergency management integration and smart surveillance are a few examples of how cities can become safer environments. He says that smart government services can also be implemented to infuse intelligence into needed services, stimulate economics and save taxpayers time and money. This will promote government accountability and integrate service delivery.
“From an African perspective, it is cheaper to implement these technologies when building infrastructure than installing them later on. One should consider how to embed intelligence into a system when building is first taking place,” Foster concludes.
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