Photo © Geoff Whalan. Used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license
The City of Darwin has released a for-comment draft of its #SmartDarwin strategy saying it provides a blueprint for the city to become a digitally innovative council and contribute to establishing Darwin as a smart, liveable, productive and sustainable capital city.
The council has identified the current Switching on Darwin project, being delivered in partnership with the Northern Territory and Australian Governments, as the first phase of a focus on smart technology to create efficiencies in service delivery and provide improved data analysis.
It says the #SmartDarwin strategy sets the framework for City of Darwin to keep working in this way beyond Switching on Darwin.”
Switching on Darwin encompasses: upgrading street lights to LED smart lighting, extension of the city’s free Wi-Fi network; CCTV and video analytics; sensors for vehicle and pedestrian movement analysis; smart parking technology; microclimate monitoring systems; a smart city platform
$200m funding
Much of the funding for #SmartDarwin is coming from the $200m Darwin City Deal, a joint initiative between the Federal Government, the Northern Territory Government and City of Darwin.
It includes $10m Switching on Darwin project funding from the Smart Cities and Suburbs Program, of which City of Darwin was awarded $5m by the Federal Government, matched by $2.5m from the Northern Territory Government and $2.5m by City of Darwin.
The strategy says this funding will enable the first phase of #SmartDarwin to be realised through the deployment of innovative technologies to May 2019. City of Darwin will also develop an implementation roadmap to guide the city’s activities and contribute to the realisation of the #SmartDarwin Strategy.
Five strategic pillars
The draft strategy lists five strategy pillars of #SmartDarwin, defined by goals to be achieved by 2021:
– developing and connecting vibrant, safe, strategic precincts;
– building a resilient and productive economy;
– enabling sustainable and smart environmental management;
– creating inclusive, smart, healthy, liveable communities that attract new residents;
– delivering an agile, innovative and collaborative city government.
The draft strategy says the tourism potential in City of Darwin will be greatly enhanced through #SmartDarwin and compliments the industry’s Turbocharging Tourism strategy.
“Greater access to data through smart technologies and innovative approaches to integrating digital technologies and analytics into visitor attraction and retention will enable existing operators to access new market opportunities and for new tourism products and services to emerge. It also enhances event experiences and the ability to promote indigenous culture and local sight-seeing offers.”
The council’s press release says feedback on the strategy can be provided via its Engage Darwin website. This contains a link to a separate #SmartDarwin page, where there is a link to a downloadable pdf of the draft strategy. There is also a separate website providing details of the strategy.
