2017 has been a momentous year in the smart cities and communities movement. This is especially true in several Asia-Pacific countries – notably Australia, Singapore, China and Korea. Newcastle, in NSW Australia, has made huge progress with its award of a Smart Cities & Suburbs Grant to advance the city’s public transportation system and digital […]
Four powerful phases of smart cities
There are many definitions of smart Cities and there will be more to come. At the same time, most agree that a smart city (or suburb or community) is not a static, defined state but more of a journey. We certainly see a smart city that way. In fact, we see it as a series of […]
Let’s take a Walk in the Pa-ark
I’ve been doing some research on urban parks. In this case, ‘research’ means I get to walk around my local park – or any park – on a nice day, looking thoughtful, and count it as work. No, really. I’ve been looking at the learned sources – meaning Wikipedia – and really working hard. And […]
Is Age the Killer App?
All tech shifts have a killer app to lead them forward. For example, back in the age of steam, it was the spreadsheet that got the PC started. It was something called Lotus 123. There may be copies of the original in a museum somewhere. It was SMS that sprung the mobile phone from being […]
Sharing data – When? Why? How?
What “data sharing” is, is pretty obvious: it’s sharing data: between organisations, between people, between departments, between governments. Most people in the smart cities movement have heard of data sharing, and that it’s an important thing. However, there are a number of reasons to put data sharing into the “too hard” basket, or at least […]
Are there smart ways to pay for smart cities?
The best things in life are free You can keep it for the birds & bees I want Money That’s what I want I’ve had some interesting phone and email feedback on an earlier blog. One struck me. It characterised my outlook on smart cities as “naïve”. Yes! – I like that word! It does […]
Wanted: smart person for smart cities initiative
According to the job ad on Seek, the role also encompasses managing ASCA’s day-to-day affairs, coordinating the development and implementation of strategic and operational initiatives, providing executive support to the ASCA executive and board and ensuring all staff meet performance expectations. The successful candidate will need “strong relationship building skills and expertise in working with […]
New Zealand tops IDC’s APAC smart city rankings
New Zealand smart city projects have won awards in four categories of IDC’s Asia/Pacific’s 2017 Smart City Asia Pacific Awards (SCAPA) 2017, beating Singapore which won in three categories. New Zealand projects took out the awards in the Public Works; Smart Grid; Connected Health; and Tourism, Arts, Libraries, Culture, Open Spaces categories. Australia scored two […]
Too Late (To Say You’re Sorry)?
By Steve Mackay First, a disclosure. For years – some of the best years of my career – I was involved in persuading (we called it ‘educating’) the telcos to adopt new infrastructure and to run new and exciting services on top of it. Correction – new, exciting AND profitable services. That infrastructure was based […]
Nokia urges concerted action to make Australian cities smart
Nokia has released a study on smart cities for Australia and called for a concerted political and industry focus on their development saying they will be a key enabler of Australia’s innovation agenda and for future economic opportunity. Nokia says its report A new world of cities and the future of Australia “highlights the risks […]
