The Bright Side of Covid on Smart City Technologies
The era of COVID has radically changed a lot of elements in our daily lives, from the way we work and communicate, to how we find solutions and adjust our routines. One of the positive shifts that has occurred is most felt in the technological field. Tech developers have managed to find a variety of solutions for just about everything, including new ways of working remotely, how we access vaccinations and so on.
In the matter of smart cities, many thought that the pandemic would derail their continued development, but it hasn't. On the contrary, the learnings taken from the “COVID technologization” seem to have pushed the development of smart cities even further. One of the things we have learnt from these difficult times is how to develop operational solutions that can sustain a long-term strategy, as opposed to one-hit-wonders. After all, a lot of the necessary smart city infrastructure was already there.
For example, Chicago has used anonymous mobile phone data to analyse travel patterns and track whether people were self-isolating. In China, the government uses smartphone data to track infected people and map out their contacts, which allowed them to keep infection rates under control.
From the eighth annual Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo, we learned that there are a lot of initiatives behind digital equity. From using optical sensors to identify needed road repairs, to technology to improve garbage collection, these solutions are cost-savers in the long run that should be implemented (early on) into yearly budgets. Incorporating these solutions right from the start, in smart city strategies, can minimise costs and maximise efficiency.
One of the things that COVID has also brought to the table, is the continued discussion on how to better handle data privacy and ownership laws. When people better understand the usage of data collection and its advantages, they become less reluctant in sharing it with governing bodies, and are therefore more open to the value it brings. Once citizens are accustomed to the experience of new and easier ways of doing day-to-day things, from parking payments to saving hassle on necessary paperwork at their local authority, they will also be more open to adopt this, along with those who are already tech-savvy. This is the way of the future.
