DESIGNING NEXT GENERATION SMART CITY INITIATIVES - HARNESSING FINDINGS AND LESSONS FROM A STUDY OF TEN SMART CITY PROGRAMS

The proliferation of Smart Cities initiatives around the world is part of the strategic response by governments to the challenges and opportunities of increasing urbanization and the rise of cities as the nexus of societal development. As a framework for urban transformation, Smart City initiatives aim to harness Information and Communication Technologies and Knowledge Infrastructures for economic regeneration, social cohesion, better city administration and infrastructure management. However, experiences from earlier Smart City initiatives have revealed several technical, management and governance challenges arising from the inherent nature of a Smart City as a complex Socio-technical System of Systems . While these early lessons are informing modest objectives for planned Smart Cities programs, no rigorous developed framework based on careful analysis of existing initiatives is available to guide policymakers, practitioners, and other Smart City stakeholders. In response to this need, this paper presents a Smart City Initiative Design (SCID) Framework grounded in the findings from the analysis of ten major Smart Cities programs from Netherlands, Sweden, Malta, United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Singapore, Brazil, South Korea, China and Japan. The findings provide a design space for the objectives, implementation options, strategies, and the enabling institutional and governance mechanisms for Smart City initiatives

Designing next generation smart city initiatives - Harnessing findings and lessons from a study of ten smart city programs

The proliferation of “Smart Cities” initiatives around the world is part of the strategic response by governments to the challenges and opportunities of increasing urbanization and the rise of cities as the nexus of societal development. As a framework for urban transformation, Smart City initiatives aim to harness Information and Communication Technologies and Knowledge Infrastructures for economic regeneration, social cohesion, better city administration and infrastructure management. However, experiences from earlier Smart City initiatives have revealed several technical, management and governance challenges arising from the inherent nature of a Smart City as a complex “Socio-technical System of Systems”. While these early lessons are informing modest objectives for planned Smart Cities programs, no rigorous developed framework based on careful analysis of existing initiatives is available to guide policymakers, practitioners, and other Smart City stakeholders. In response to this need, this paper presents a “Smart City Initiative Design (SCID) Framework” grounded in the findings from the analysis of ten major Smart Cities programs from Netherlands, Sweden, Malta, United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Singapore, Brazil, South Korea, China and Japan. The findings provide a design space for the objectives, implementation options, strategies, and the enabling institutional and governance mechanisms for Smart City initiatives

Design smart city apps using activity theory.

In this paper we describe an innovative approach to the design process of Smart City interventions. We tested it with participants enrolled in the Master\u2019s Degree program in \u201cInnovators in enterprise and public administration\u201d: the objective of the Master was to stimulate the acquisition of technical and methodological skills useful in designing and implementing specific Smart City actions. During the "project work" phase, participants learned about a design method named SAM \u2013 Smart City Model - based on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). We present an overview of design criteria for Smart City projects, the description of the theoretical framework of Activity Theory, and our proposal of the SAM design model. We also present some examples of student\u2019s \u201cprojects\u201d and a more extensive description of one case study about the full design process of an App planned using SAM, for \u201csmart health\u201d vaccine management and monitoring services. The App was later published and made available to the citizens and was successful in attracting thousands of users. All the participants considered the model very useful in particular because it made possible to understand the interaction and solve contradictions between different stakeholders and systems involved

An Introduction to Smart City Research: A review of The Past And The Future

Smart city is a growing area of research. Its scope is broad as it touches individuals’ life, government, and environment. Advancement in digital technologies, particularly the Internet of Things, have enabled cities to become smarter and thus affected many structures (physical, social, etc.). Given such broad scope and the effects the smart city could bring about, the growing numbers of research seems to be inadequate. This paper attempts to review the past studies and identify what have been done and not done. Smart city research related to Southeast Asia in particular is also looked at in this paper. The literature was categorised and discussed under three main aspects concerning the area of management information systems, namely business, organization and technology. Gaps are identified, and future research are called for

Towards Designing Effective Governance Regimes for Smart City Initiatives: The Case of the City of Duisburg

Smart cities are characterized by heterogenic stakeholders, many layers of authorities, complex decision-making processes, and competing objectives. As a result, they require a sophisticated and well-planned governance regime. We describe the development and design of a governance regime which is grounded on IS principles as well as the resulting governance structure in a medium-sized city in Europe. Using the action design research approach, we designed, implemented, and revised in multiple iterations an ensemble artifact consisting of the governance structures and processes for a smart city initiative. Our empirical observations highlight challenges of coordination, communication, and innovation in this smart city and report on how we implemented and adjusted the governance regime accordingly. Our results are a first step towards general recommendations for the design and implementation of smart city governance regimes in medium-sized cities

Smart Cities and Sustainable Development, Adoption of Green IS Projects in Local Authorities

Smart city teams working in local authorities may have an important role to play in pursuing Sustainable Development Goals at local level. However, the successful adoption of their projects has been problematic. This research in progress addresses this problem by focusing on the adoption process of Green IS projects led by smart city teams in local authorities and the factors that enable or constrain that process. It presents key findings from a systematic literature review; research gaps and future research directions; a research methodology including a draft framework to guide data collection; and anticipated theoretical and practical contributions

The State of the Art in Smart City Research – A Literature Analysis on Green IS Solutions to Foster Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is one of the most critical issues worldwide, concerning every individual. The main objective in this area is to preserve scarce resources and reduce CO2 emissions in order to prevent environmental degradation. In recent years the potential of information systems (IS) as a driver for environmental sustainability has emerged under the term “Green IS”. Given that cities represent a huge share of environmental degradation due to factors such as mobility, energy and water consumption, and waste production, the municipal domain offers huge potentials in terms of sustainability. The advent of smart cites is an attempt to address this concern. In this paper we aim to provide an overview of current publications on environmental sustainability in smart cities, as research in this field is still unstructured. This paper focuses on structuring the research field by providing a research framework to achieve a more holistic view on the application of Green IS. We distinguish between research performed by the IS community and that of related fields, such as urban development, and perform a cross-sectional, exhaustive literature analysis with almost 1,500 articles to uncover the differences and commonalities between the domains

Urban Solutions: Metropolitan Approaches, Innovation in Urban Water and Sanitation, and Inclusive Smart Cities

To encourage a new generation of urban policymakers and promote early career research, the Wilson Center's Urban Sustainability Laboratory, Cities Alliance, IHC - Global Coalition for Inclusive Housing and Sustainable Cities, USAID, and the World Bank have teamed together to cosponsor the Reducing Urban Poverty Paper Competition for advanced graduate students. This publication marks the 6th year of the annual paper competition. The winning papers included in this volume offer original, solutions-oriented research to assess existing urban policy and practice

Closing The Planning Gap: Towards 100% Renewable Energy Communities

As municipalities in Canada seek out ways in which to address the issues related to climate change, urbanization, and increase in population, energy is an ever-increasing concern. It's connection to land use, urban forms and infrastructure highlights the importance of local governments role in addressing these related issues. Many local governments are considering community energy plans as a solution to address issues related to the energy sector at the community level. The purpose of this paper is to understand and create a draft manual on how to close the planning gap that exists in community energy plans through understanding the development of proper policy frameworks primarily for planners and other municipal staff interested in renewable communities. It further seeks the methods a municipality should consider in planning to achieve 100% renewable community. Given the interdisciplinary nature of planning towards RE communities, a mixedmethods approach was followed. Municipalities in British Columbia have been studied, successful cases have been reviewed, interviews with municipal staff have been taken place, and literature review and non-academic papers have been read to yield important practical lessons regarding required steps to develop policy frameworks that would result in the increase in energy efficiency targets and increase in RE implementations at the local level. The predominant challenge for local governments in addressing climate change issues is that the adopted community energy plans, as mitigation and adaptation strategies, have targets in regards to the energy efficiency and RE that are not being fully implemented. Lack of internal alignment, capacity, funding, and policy frameworks have been identified as main barriers. In this paper steps required in developing policy frameworks have been studied to better guide communities that aim to achieve RE communities. Planning for 100% RE communities can build the leadership and commitment that is necessary to move towards implementation of energy targets in the absence of national regulatory support. There is a substantial opportunity to close the gap between energy planning and the implementation of energy targets at the local level. However, as there is no one size fits all, each municipality has to develop their own policy actions using local policy tools. The policy frameworks provide the general information on how to best develop a successful policy. However, using incentives and political buy-in have been identified to play a key role in the implementation of energy targets to achieve 100% RE communities